After a federal appeals court refused their request, the Roman Catholic dioceses of Pittsburgh and Erie immediately went to the U.S. Supreme Court and just as swiftly got the answer they sought.
Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday delayed federal enforcement of a mandate — which had been formalized just hours earlier by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals — that would have made contraceptives available to workers at the dioceses’ charitable agencies under their insurance plans.
The decision by Justice Alito, who hears such petitions from the Third Circuit, maintains the status quo but also signals the growing likelihood of what some are calling “Hobby Lobby II” — a Supreme Court showdown on whether religious non-profits have to comply with the mandate under the Affordable Care Act.
In a similar case last year, headlined by the Hobby Lobby corporation, the Supreme Court found that closely held corporations with religious objections to aspects of the contraception mandate were exempt from it.
Under the Affordable Care Act, churches and other core religious organizations are exempt from the requirement to cover contraceptives under their insurance.
But faith-based organizations like charities and schools are required to submit a form saying they object. That then triggers a process in which insurance company provides contraceptive coverage to the workers at its own expense. But the dioceses have argued that even submitting this opt-out form makes them complicit in a “moral evil,” given Catholic teaching against using artificial means to block conception.
The U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania sided with the dioceses, but in February, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling in favor of enforcing the mandates.
The appeals court ruled that the opt-out form does not make the dioceses complicit and therefore does not substantially burden their exercise of religious freedom.
In the days leading up to Justice Alito’s order, the appeals court had refused two more petitions by the dioceses: to re-hear the case before its full bench and then to delay enforcement while a flurry of similar cases work their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Then on Wednesday, when the appeals court formally notified the dioceses of the mandate going into effect, the dioceses immediately petitioned Justice Alito and received his ruling within hours.
Bishop David Zubik said the Pittsburgh diocese was grateful for the stay of the order, which “would have jeopardized the future of Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh with heavy fines for refusing to facilitate certain government mandates which the Catholic Church deems immoral.”
“This stay is a welcome but interim step in pursuit of the religious freedom that our laws and Constitution have guaranteed to all Americans,” Bishop Zubik said. “We remain in prayer that justice will prevail and that Catholic Charities will be allowed to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The Alito rulings did not cover cases involving Geneva College, a Christian school in Beaver Falls, or the Diocese of Greensburg, which also have challenged the mandates.
While Justice Alito joined the majority in the Hobby Lobby case, it’s common for justices to issue orders preserving the status quo when an issue is likely to get a fuller Supreme Court hearing.
Supreme Court rulings have also delayed enforcement of aspects of the mandate in cases involving the Colorado-based Little Sisters of the Poor and Wheaton College, an evangelical school in Illinois. Numerous other organizations have challenged the legality of the mandate on legal grounds, setting up the expected Supreme Court showdown.
Some evangelical Protestant groups, while not objecting to all contraceptives, object to covering those that they believe could also cause early-term abortions.
Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416. Twitter: @PG_PeterSmith.
First Published: April 17, 2015, 3:31 p.m.
Updated: April 18, 2015, 3:30 a.m.
