Catholic bishops went to the Hill on Thursday to meet with Latino legislators and preach Catholic social teaching on four primary issues: health care reform, immigration, poverty and education.

Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento said the bishops “went to the Hill basically as teachers and pastors to try to bring to them the principles we believe are essential to comprehensive health care and comprehensive immigration reform.”

I asked Soto and Archbishop Jose Gomez, who were both on a conference call with journalists this afternoon, whether they saw anything in the new Baucus health-care bill they liked or didn’t like.

Soto said the USCCB staff is studying at the bill and hoped that Catholic principles “work their way” into the language of any health care reform legislation. With more than 600 hospitals in the U.S., the Catholic Church has more than ideological concerns at stake in this debate.

Other members of the delegation included Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, NM, Bishop James Tamayo of Laredo, TX, Bishop Carlos Sevilla of Yakima, WA, and Auxiliary Bishop Edgar Da Cunha of Newark, NJ.

Meanwhile, Catholic journalist David Gibson weaves various strands together to make a case that Catholic centrists are pushing back against the death panelists and anti-public optionists in the church.

Beginning with a column by Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl on the need for health care reform (for immigrants, too), David connects a statement by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who said strident anti-abortionists were doing “irreparable damage to the communion of the church,” to Archbishop of New Mexico Michael Sheehan’s insistence that “combative” conservative bishops are a minority in the hierarchy, to the resignation of the outspoken Bishop of Scranton Joseph Martino to positive reaction to Obama’s congressional address last week by the Catholic Health Association and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“The upshot is that the Catholic center is trying to hold, or even retake, some territory — and credibility — ceded in the debate over health care reform,” Gibson says. “And there is an argument to be made that Catholic support will be critical to passing the kind of health care reform that Obama and others would like.”