You just know there was a large contingency within the Catholic church that was dying for some justification to enter back into the Leftist fold after King Barack's proclamation. For those, this "accommodation" was a godsend.
It would not surprise me in the least to learn that the hardline proclamation was just part of an overall strategy to make the proclamation, deal with the agitation over it, and then offer this "accommodation" to make it all better, thereby getting exactly what they want: religious institutions paying for contraception against the doctrine of the church, while those same institutions fawn over how "reasonable" the administration is.
"See how reasonable our Leftist masters are? They only try to do what they think is best for their subjects, but when the subjects don't like it, they will make accommodations." That's the story moving forward.