At National Review, Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center responds to my criticism of the degree to which the US bishops have turned over their religious liberty campaign to the Becket Fund. His critique is pretty weak. For example, he writes, "Winters is evidently unaware that the American bishops are taking exactly the same position on moral complicity as the Little Sisters in various lawsuits around the country—lawsuits, incidentally, in which they are not being represented by the Becket Fund." The "American bishops" as a group have not taken a position on the issue of moral complicity. Most dioceses are not litigants and some actually can't be - because they were already providing contraception coverage in their health plans before the mandate was even issued. If what Whelan says were true, then we would be contemplating the wholesale shuttering of Catholic ministries if these cases uphold the accommodation, and that is not something most bishops are contemplating. Still, it is always nice to be noticed.
At Zenit, a fascinating interview with Msgr. Guillermo Karcher, one of the pope's closest aides.
In WaPo, E.J. Dionne on a tale of two GOP Midwest governors. This tells us a lot about the state of the GOP today.
