On July 8, 2020 the Little Sisters won their case at the U.S. Supreme Court

Decision from U.S. Supreme Court:

Opinion of the Supreme Court

Oral Argument at the U.S. Supreme Court:

May 6, 2020 (10-11 am) Listen here

After seven years of unending legal conflict to save their ministry, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor 7-2 , allowing them to continue serving the elderly poor and dying without threat of millions of dollars in fines. Today’s ruling grants them protection to freely serve the elderly poor without violating their conscience.

In 2013, when the federal government came after the nuns over the contraceptive mandate, the Little Sisters reluctantly went to court and won relief from the Supreme Court, but now several state governments are on the attack. The Little Sisters are currently defending themselves from lawsuits by Pennsylvania and other states at the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard the case telephonically on May 6. The Little Sisters of the Poor are standing up to defend their religious exemption and to preserve accommodations from burdensome government regulations for all religious Americans.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are a group of Catholic nuns who are devoted to caring for the elderly poor. In the Little Sisters’ homes, no one dies alone. The elderly and dying are cared for with love and dignity—regardless of wealth or status—as if they were Christ himself, until God calls them home. These religious women are loving and joyful in their ministry, even as they go begging door to door to provide for their communities.

The Little Sisters of the Poor didn’t ask for this legal fight. They exhausted every option possible before going to court, but they cannot do the important work of caring for the elderly poor without protection from government regulations that force them to violate their faith. 

In 2011, the federal government issued a regulation that would have required the Little Sisters to provide contraceptives and abortifacients in violation of their deeply held religious beliefs or pay millions of dollars in fines. After a long battle in the lower courts, during which the government told the nuns they were fighting an “invisible dragon,” the Supreme Court finally stepped in and unanimously ordered the government to leave the Little Sisters alone and find another solution. The government admitted that it had other ways to distribute contraceptives, and in 2017, the federal government issued a new rule with broad religious exemptions for religious ministries like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

But Pennsylvania, California, and several other states immediately sued, arguing that the government doesn’t have the authority to issue the religious exemption, threatening not only the Little Sisters’ ministry but religious accommodations for countless others.