Obama Shift on Contraception Splits Catholics The near-unified front led by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions. The leaders of several large Catholic organizations that work directly on poverty, health care and education have welcomed the president's plan as a workable compromise that has the potential to protect religious freedom while allowing employees who request it to have contraceptives covered by their insurance plans. The bishops, however, have continued to voice strong objections to the White House plan. And they have taken it one step further, arguing that individual Catholics who own businesses should not have to provide birth control to their employees in their health insurance coverage. The uproar threatens to embroil the Catholic church in a bitter election-year political battle while deepening internal rifts within the church. On the one side are traditionalists who believe in upholding Catholic doctrine to the letter, and on the other, modernists who believe the church must respond to changing times and a pluralistic society. To many Catholics, it is reminiscent of the rifts that surfaced in 1968 when Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical "Humanae Vitae," which reaffirmed the prohibition on artificial contraception, disregarding a Vatican commission's recommendation to do away with the ban. Now, as then, even the nuns are not on the same page. The organization that represents a majority of women's religious orders, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said the Obama administration had listened to the concerns of Catholics and found a "fair and helpful way to move forward." But a traditionalist order in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, which was formed 15 years ago and has about 100 members, said in a statement that the "so-called compromise" by the White House was "insulting." Leslie Tentler, professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, said: "Part of what is going on is a larger authority issue of who speaks for the church. And I think most Catholics would take exception to the bishops" argument that only the bishops get to say what is Catholic morality in very difficult situations. "It also reflects the unresolved status of the teaching on contraception, which is widely violated not just by Catholics, but also by the clergy, who don't even talk about the issue," said Dr. Tentler, the author of "Catholics and Contraception: An American History." A new New York Times/CBS News poll has found that 57 percent of Catholic voters supported the requirement for religiously affiliated employers, like hospitals or universities, to cover the full cost of birth control for their employees, while 36 percent opposed it (7 percent said they did not know). There was almost no difference between Catholic and other voters on the question. At issue is a provision in the health care overhaul passed in 2010 requiring employers to offer preventive care, including free birth control. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Jan. 20 that parishes and houses of worship would be exempted from the requirement, but that other religiously affiliated employers, like Catholic hospitals and universities, would still have to pay for the coverage. The bishops called the rule an affront to religious liberty and a violation of Catholic conscience. After three weeks of protest that united the bishops with many priests, nuns and prominent Catholic laypeople from the political right and left, the Obama administration announced what it called a compromise on Friday. It said that the Catholic institutions would not have to pay for the birth control coverage or refer their employees to it, but that it would all be covered directly by the insurance companies. The contrast in responses from Catholic organizations has been more a matter of tone than content. They are all in agreement that certain issues still need to be worked out, like what to do about Catholic institutions that are "self-insured," meaning that they act as both the insurer and the employer. Yet some struck an optimistic tone, greeting the White House's announcement as a good-faith step forward. Those groups included the Catholic Health Association, which represents 600 hospitals and 1,400 health care facilities, plus Catholic Charities, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. They said that details like what to do about "self-insurance" could be worked out. The Rev. Gregory Lucey, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, which represents 28 institutions, said: "I really am appreciative of what the president did last Friday. I'm optimistic and hopeful, and I feel the religious liberty issue is addressed. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, sounded a more sober tone in an interview on Tuesday, saying, "We don't see any substantial change, and we worry this raises more questions than it gives answers." Archbishop Dolan, who is in Rome for the ceremony on Saturday when he will be made a cardinal, said: "We are still afraid that we are being called upon to subsidize something we find morally illicit. There is still no attention to what you might call the deeper philosophical issues, namely, "What right does a federal bureau have to define the who, what, where and how of religious practice?" " The controversy sounds to many Catholic leaders like a replay of the fight over the health care overhaul passed in 2010. Catholic bishops had been advocating universal health care since 1919, and yet ultimately they nearly blocked the passage of the health care bill in 2010 because, they said, it did not go far enough to ensure that federal money would not be used to pay for abortions. This time, Catholic leaders who work in health care said in interviews that they did not want to see the controversy over religious liberty and contraception get in the way of implementing the health care overhaul. Sister Anne Curtis, a member of the leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, a religious order with 3,800 members based in Silver Spring, Md., said, "Our hope is to work out this one aspect of this health care legislation so that health care can be made available for all." Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, said: "My special interest is that in 2014, the 32 or so million people who do not now have health insurance will get access to health care. It's a huge impact on the lives of many people in this country. I've been in health care for 40 years; I know they're suffering. Sharon Otterman contributed reporting from Rome.