Catholic Health Association Backs Away from Support of Casey Language?

From the icky but quick lifenews (I swear Steven Ertelt has no life):

On December 17, Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the CHA, released a statement LifeNews.com obtained showing it praising a phony compromise on abortion funding

Sen. Bob Casey floated a compromise in an attempt to get Sen. Ben Nelson to withdraw his then-objection to the Senate bill because of its abortion funding. The measure would have forced pro-life advocates to opt out if they objected to their tax dollars paying for abortions. Otherwise, Americans would be forced to pay for abortions under the legislation.

The proposal was thoroughly trashed by pro-life groups with the National Right to Life committee and other organizations calling it "unacceptable" and Richard Doerflinger, a spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, saying the bishops appreciated the goals of some of Casey’s proposal, but that they did not actually stop taxpayer funding of abortion.

But Keehan said in the statement that, although she hadn't seen the text of the Casey proposal, "we are encouraged by recent deliberations and the outline Senator Casey is developing."

Keehan claimed that "now that a public health insurance option is no longer on the table, we are increasingly confident that Senator Casey’s language can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion."

"It is our understanding that the language now being written would prohibit federal funding of abortion," Keehan said.

The language did not ban abortion funding and it left some Catholics -- and the New York Times -- with the impression that CHA was at odds with the Catholic bishops.

In a Christmas Day news story, "Catholic Group Supports Senate on Abortion Aid" the Times reported that there is "an apparent split with Roman Catholic bishops over the abortion-financing provisions of the proposed health care overhaul" and that "the nation’s Catholic hospitals have signaled that they back the Senate’s compromise."

The Times exploited the supposed divide with quotes from pro-abortion Representative Diana DeGette, who said “We have known for quite some time that the Catholic hospitals and also the nuns are really breaking from these hard-line bishops."

Today, Keehan talked with the Catholic News Service about the dustup.

She said CHA has never wavered in its commitment to health care that protects "from conception to natural death" and she disputed the Times' report.

"There is not a shred of disagreement between CHA and the bishops," Sister Carol said. "We believe there is a great possibility and probability that in conference committee we can work toward a solution that will prevent federal funding of abortion."