I had been intending to comment up Laurie Goodstein's article in the NYTimes about the USCCB meeting this week, but Rob Vischer beat me to it at "Mirror of Justice," making almost all the points I wanted to make and all of which I endorse.
I would only add one point to Rob's excellent commentary. In recent memory, the first time a Catholic prelate voiced his concern about religious liberty, it had nothing to do with contraception or abortion. It was in 2006, when Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles announced on the eve of Lent that if Congress passed a law requiring Catholic social workers, teachers or hospital workers to question the legal status of immigrants, he would order all employees of the archdiocese to disobey the law. Mahony did not frame the issue in terms of religious liberty, but it is the same concern.
