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It’s common sense that wherever the Catholic population is large enough to decide national elections, it’s political suicide for a president to mess with the bishops.

Thus in the United States, w hen the president rules that health insurance plans should cover contraception and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops reacts by brandishing their croziers at him, he is expected to genuflect. Especially so when his political rivals are rallying the evangelical base with the battle cry that the president has declared “war against religion.”

And in the Philippines, a president who certifies a reproductive health bill is expected to kneel before the Catholic Bishops Conference when they threaten him with excommunication. The bill, of course, bears provisions that would ensure the availability of contraceptive services. And that is anathema, a curse, to the bishops.

In both cases, common sense is wrong. Observe Obama: When he announced his policy on contraception coverage and the bishops went ballistic, he calmly took a small step back and reasonably compromised. Religiously affiliated organizations like Catholic hospitals and universities, he granted, would no longer be required to bear the cost of contraception for their employees. The cost would be borne by the insurance companies.

Many Catholic institutions supported the original policy in the first place, and almost all support the compromise. But the bishops remain fiercely against it and the Republican presidential hopefuls are falling over each other to bludgeon Obama with what they think is a hot issue.

In fact, not only have the bishops lost touch with their flocks, they have also eroded their own moral authority. As one prelate admitted recently in a symposium at the Vatican, when the bishops covered up the sexual abuse of boys by parish priests, the Catholic hierarchy had resorted to the code of omerta, the vow of silence associated with the Mafia, not with the Magisterium of the Church.

This scandal and its cover-up, which took place mostly in the United States, have been burned into the consciousness of American Catholics. So when the bishops launched their rebuke of Obama for his contraceptive policy as if they were exorcising Satan himself, ordinary American Catholics heard only pharisaical sound and fury.

As to the views of the American public on contraception, both the bishops and the Republicans fail to see the relevant numbers: 55 percent of all Americans are for inclusion of contraception in all health care plans, while 40 are against. If you limit the respondents to Catholics, the majority in favor rises to 58 percent. On the issue of contraception itself, an overwhelming 98 percent of Catholic women are not only for it but have practiced it.

Catholic women listen to their conscience, not to their bishops.

Where does that leave Obama? The controversy has given him the chance to show that he is in tune with the sensibilities of Catholics, especially the women, and that he is neither dogmatic nor ideologically rigid but capable of reasonable compromise.

On the other hand, by riding the Vatican crusade, the Republicans have weakened their best candidate, Mitt Romney, and may yet offer to Obama on a silver platter a rival who is easier to beat, like Rick Santorum.

Meanwhile in the Philippines, nationwide support for the reproductive health bill, according to opinion surveys, stands at about 70 percent. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines is vehemently against it but most other Christian groups, including the homegrown Church of Christ, are for it. So is the Ulama of the Assembly of Darul-Iftah of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which issued a fatwa in its favor.

No wonder President Benigno Aquino III, when threatened with excommunication by the Catholic bishops, did not budge. Now if he can take his mind off the impeachment case against the chief justice of the Supreme Court long enough to push his own legislative program, the reproductive health situation for women would be better off.

They need help fast: USAID has closed its family planning program in the country. No new public funds have been allocated for contraceptive services since Gloria Arroyo, Aquino’s predecessor, succumbed to the bishops’ pressure.

The bishops will always put up a fight because they are more in tune with the petrified dogmas of the Vatican than with the consciences of the faithful, who are confronting the problems of the human condition from day to day.

Jamil Maidan Flores is a poet, fiction writer, playwright and essayist who has worked as a speechwriter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1992.