WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear legal challenges to the federal contraception mandate brought by numerous nonprofit groups, including the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The court made its announcement Nov. 6. It will take up seven cases representing numerous schools, dioceses and charitable organizations.

At the center of the controversy is a federal rule announced by the Obama administration that requires most employers to provide employee health-care plans that cover birth control, sterilizations and drugs that can cause early abortions.

Employers that do not comply with the mandate may face crippling fines as a penalty. In the case of the Little Sisters, this could mean up to $2.5 million per year in fines for not complying with the mandate, or 40% of the annual amount they beg for.

After the outcry that the rules violated the religious freedom of employers who conscientiously objected to providing such coverage, the administration announced revised guidelines in the form of a religious “accommodation.” Religious organizations and nonprofits that oppose the mandate are instructed to sign a form directing the government to notify their insurers of their objections. The insurers will then have the burden of providing the coverage.

While the government has argued that this coverage will ultimately be free because contraception provides “tremendous” health benefits and lower costs that would otherwise come from bearing children, critics contend that the costs of the coverage will still eventually be passed on to the employers themselves.

Many religiously affiliated organizations — including employers, nonprofits, hospitals and universities — still object to the revised guidelines. They said the rules still force them to cooperate in actions that they believe to be immoral. In total, more than 300 plaintiffs have filed lawsuits challenging the mandate.   

Lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have argued that the revised guidelines still put a “substantial burden” on the beliefs of religious nonprofits and closely held businesses because they are required to hand the government “all it needs” to provide the objectionable coverage.

Last July, the Little Sisters of the Poor lost their case against the mandate at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that the “accommodation” offered by the administration to religious groups like the sisters did not put a “substantial burden” on their religious beliefs and “relieves” them “from complicity” in actions they find objectionable.

The sisters applied for and received a temporary injunction from the mandate in August and appealed their case to the Supreme Court.

During his visit to the U.S., Pope Francis made an unscheduled stop at the sisters’ Jeanne Jugan Residence in Washington to show “support” for them in their case against the mandate, the director of the Holy See’s press office, Father Federico Lombardi, confirmed after the stop.

The Supreme Court has already ruled once on the HHS mandate. In a case involving the family-owned craft chain Hobby Lobby, the court ruled in 2014 that they and similar “closely held for-profit” businesses were exempt from the mandate. For-profit companies had not been offered the “accommodation” given to religious nonprofits.

The Green family, which owns the chain, had conscientiously objected to providing employees coverage for drugs they believed could cause abortions.

In that decision, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, the Supreme Court ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act when applied to a closely held for-profit corporation like Hobby Lobby.

Now, the court will consider the mandate as it applies to nonprofit groups. A ruling is expected sometime next year.

Michael Warsaw, chairman and CEO of EWTN Global Catholic Network, the parent company of the Register and Catholic News Agency, said, “Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the HHS contraceptive mandate cases, including the one filed by the Little Sisters of the Poor, is wonderful news."

"In our own challenge to the mandate, EWTN has been waiting for the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to issue a decision, following oral arguments before that court in February 2015," he said. "Today’s action by the Supreme Court may mean the EWTN case will be put on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision."

"Contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs are not health care, and participating in providing them to our employees violates our Catholic beliefs," Warsaw added. "When EWTN launched its first lawsuit against the mandate in 2012, we made it clear that we cannot and will not compromise our strongly held beliefs on these moral issues. We are extremely encouraged by the fact that the Supreme Court has chosen to weigh in on this unprecedented government violation of religious liberty. We ask our EWTN family to continue to keep this matter in their prayers.”