Bernardin got caught up in a political whirlwind that was blowing from Rome.  Bernardin's ministry as a bishop was rooted in Vatican II's teaching about collegiality. As a young bishop, he served as General Secretary of what was then the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. For the rest of his life, he was committed to the NCCB/USCC as an expression of episcopal collegiality. He served as president of the conference and perhaps even more significantly as chair of the bishops' committee that produced the pastoral letter, 'The Challenge of Peace.' Pope JP II set out to emasculate the various collegial structures that emerged after Vatican II. Cardinal Law was never a conference man - he couldn't get elected to a committee chair. He became the pope's point man in undermining the conference. That put Bernardin in his cross-hairs.
Law's misjudgments about Bernardin, collegiality and the conference also played out in the horrendous mistakes Law made regarding clergy sex abuse.