Wednesday, February 06, 2013  Is Latest Olive Branch on
Contraception Coverage a Win for Catholic Progressives?  On
February 1, 2013, the Obama administration offered a new olive
branch to the Catholic Church in the controversy over the
contraception coverage mandated for all health insurance
policies by the Affordable Care Act.  In an analysis posted the
same day, Washington Post Opinion Writer E.J. Dionne Jr. argued
that "The decision ought to be taken by the nation's Catholic
bishops as a victory, because it is."  But what Dionne's full
analysis shows is that the government's latest proposal may well
be a more important victory for "Catholic progressives" --
because what persuaded Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
was not the bishops' disproportionate, hysterical ranting about
an attack on their religious liberty, but rather the Catholic
progressives' concern that Sebelius had defined the term
"religious organization" too narrowly and failed to accommodate
religious institutions that self-insure.