Addressing a largely Catholic audience Monday night at an event sponsored by the John Carroll Society in Washington, D.C., Cardinal Timothy Dolan emphasized the non-sectarian, non-partisan—catholic with a small “c”—nature of the fight for religious liberty.  “It is not some far right, extremist cause,” Dolan said, but an “American human rights issue.”

Dolan, who recently attended both the Republican and Democratic conventions (“as a pastor [and] not to endorse any party, platform, or candidate”), has so far avoided taking an overtly partisan stance this election season. He has, however, been at the forefront of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ criticism of President Obama’s Health and Human Services mandate requiring many Catholic institutions to provide insurance plans to their employees that would cover contraceptives and abortifacients.