text: I take your point, John, but I wonder if that's still as true as it once was. Historically, the Church has gone through many dark chapters, during which it typically decided that discretion was the better part of valor and limited its interventions to statements it fully understood would be ignored. I think something like that may be happening now, that is, the USCCB making statements just to get their position on the record, but understanding full well that most Catholics take their statements with glaciers of salt.