Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government

Mary Ann Glendon

This week Catholic bishops are heading to federal courts across the country to defend religious liberty.  On Monday they filed 12 lawsuits on behalf of a diverse group of 43 Catholic entities that are challenging the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) sterilization, abortifacient and birth-control insurance mandate.  

Like most Americans, the bishops have long taken for granted the religious freedom that has enabled this nation's diverse religions to flourish in relative harmony.  But over the past year they have become increasingly concerned about the erosion of conscience protections for church-related individuals and institutions.  Their top-rated program for assistance to human trafficking victims was denied funding for refusing to provide "the full range of reproductive services," including abortion.  For a time, Catholic Relief Services faced a similar threat to its international relief programs.  The bishops fear religious liberty is becoming a second-class right.

Along with leaders of other faiths who have conscientious objections to all or part of the mandate, they hoped to persuade the government to bring its regulations into line with the First Amendment, and with federal laws such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that provide exemptions to protect the conscience rights of religious institutions and individuals.  

On Jan. 20, however, HHS announced it would not revise the mandate or expand its tight exemption, which covers only religious organizations that mainly hire and serve their co-religionists.  Instead, the mandated coverage will continue to apply to hospitals, schools and social service providers run by groups whose religious beliefs require them to serve everyone in need.  

Continued attempts to solve the problem by negotiation produced only an announcement by the Obama administration in February that insurance providers would pay for the contested services.  Since many Catholic entities are self-insured and the others pay the premiums, the bishops' concerns were not alleviated.  

The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women's health.  It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions.

The media have implied all along that the dispute is mainly of concern to a Catholic minority with peculiar views about human sexuality.  But religious leaders of all faiths have been quick to see that what is involved is a flagrant violation of religious freedom.  That's why former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, declared, "We're all Catholics now."

More is at stake here than the mission of all churches, including the Catholic Church, to provide social services like health care and education to everyone regardless of creed, and to do so without compromising their beliefs.  At the deepest level, we are witnessing an attack on the institutions of civil society that are essential to limited government and are important buffers between the citizen and the all-powerful state.  

At the deepest level, we are witnessing an attack on the institutions of civil society that are essential to limited government and are important buffers between the citizen and the all-powerful state.

If religious providers of education, health care and social services are closed down or forced to become tools of administration policy, the government consolidates a monopoly over those essential services.  As Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it, we are witnessing an effort to reduce religion to a private activity.  "Never before," he said, "have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith."

With this week's lawsuits, the bishops join a growing army of other plaintiffs around the country, Catholic and non-Catholic, who are asking the courts to repel an unprecedented governmental assault on the ability of religious persons and groups to practice their religion without being forced to violate their deepest moral convictions.  

Religious freedom is subject to necessary limitations in the interests of public health and safety.  The HHS regulations do not fall into that category.  The world has gotten along fine without this mandate — the services in question are widely and cheaply available, and most employers will provide coverage for them.  

But if the regulations are not reversed, they threaten to demote religious liberty from its prominent place among this country's most cherished freedoms.  That is why Cardinal Dolan told CBS's "Face the Nation" on April 8: "We didn't ask for this fight, but we won't back away from it."