CNA Staff, Aug 13, 2025 / 16:25 pm (CNA).
A federal court has ruled against the Little Sisters of the Poor in their long-running legal dispute over government contraception mandates, dealing a blow to the religious order of sisters even after multiple court victories, including at the Supreme Court.
The legal advocacy group Becket said on Aug. 13 that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of both New Jersey and Pennsylvania in finding that the federal government had not followed protocol when issuing exemptions to contraceptive requirements, including for the Little Sisters.
The district court said that a set of religious exemptions granted by the federal government during the first Trump administration were “arbitrary [and] capricious” and failed to adhere to the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedure Act.
The court has vacated those exemptions “in their entirety,” the Aug. 13 ruling said.
Diana Thomson, a senior attorney with Becket, told CNA that the case is the same one that saw the Little Sisters win a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 when a majority of the court’s justices said the exemptions to the contraceptive mandate were legal.
She described the procedural questions in the Aug. 13 ruling as “cutting-floor arguments” that the states had largely ignored several years ago.
“Instead of dropping the case, Pennsylvania and New Jersey revitalized their cutting-floor arguments that they chose not to pursue at the Supreme Court last time and brought them in the district court,” she said.
The district court accepted those arguments “even though the Supreme Court already blessed the rules,” Thomson said.
The court is “trying to find a loophole” to the 2020 Supreme Court ruling, she said.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania had brought the lawsuit against multiple federal agencies and officials, though the Little Sisters of the Poor were attached to the lawsuit as “defendant-intervenors.”
The sisters will appeal the ruling, Thomson said.
“I assume the Trump administration will appeal also,” she said. “But the Little Sisters’ appeal is already on file.”
“We will appeal all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to,” she said.
In a separate statement, Mark Rienzi, the president of Becket and the lead attorney for the Little Sisters, said it was “bad enough that the district court issued a nationwide ruling invalidating federal religious conscience rules.”
“But even worse is that the district court simply ducked the glaring constitutional issues in this case after waiting five years and not even holding a hearing,” he argued.
“It is absurd to think the Little Sisters might need yet another trip to the Supreme Court to end what has now been more than a dozen years of litigation over the same issue,” he said, adding: “We will fight as far as we need to fight to protect the Little Sisters’ right to care for the elderly in peace.”
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Stop offering insurance and help employees navigate the health share system. This problem should go away then.
That’s one way out of this dilemma – instead of offering health care policies to employees, give each the equivalent cost of the premium paid annually and let them go into the marketplace. And, since the work of the institutions run by the Little Sisters of the Poor is a ministry of the Catholic Church, hire only Catholics recommended by their pastor.
That’s not really competitive in finding employees; but could be an option. Healthy and young can take more chances with coverage but you do need coverage for accidents and serious illnesses that can add up fast. You used to be able to get a catastrophic policy for a couple hundred a month then Obamascare got rid of that option.
Our health care system is in tatters though, and the government has no business telling us what we must offer in our health plans.
That’s not really competitive in finding employees; but could be an option. Healthy and young can take more chances with coverage but you do need coverage for accidents and serious illnesses that can add up fast. You used to be able to get a catastrophic policy for a couple hundred a month then Obamascare got rid of that option.
Our health care system is in tatters though, and the government has no business telling us what we must offer in our health plans.
Federal Court Requires Nuns To Start Worshiping Molech
PHILADELPHIA, PA — In a landmark ruling that was sure to have far-reaching consequences, a federal court ruled that a group of Catholic nuns would be immediately required to start worshiping Molech.
Despite public outcry advocating for religious liberty and the right to be exempt from governmental requirements to cover contraceptives, the court ordered the nuns to abandon their deeply held convictions and turn to worshiping the ancient Canaanite deity, infamously known to call for child sacrifices.
Aug 14, 2025 · BabylonBee.com