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Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case of the "Little Sisters of the Poor."
The attack on the sisters has been relentless. They can not, according to their faith and conscience, include contraceptives in their employee health plan.
The Obama administration has offered several options---compromises, including one scheme that would have allowed the Sisters to have someone else supply the pills so the sisters could still claim they were not actually paying for and distributing contraceptives.
The Sisters face tens of millions of dollars in IRS fines for non-compliance. This is the second time the Sisters have asked the Court to protect them from their president.
The Beckett Fund, who represents the Little Sisters of the Poor, put out a press release on Friday.
The release says the Sisters and the legal representation is pleased with the fact that the Court will hear the case.
Becket Fund says, "The Court's decision will finally resolve the crucial question of whether governmental agencies can, wholly without legislative oversight, needlessly force religious ministries to violate their faith."
I never thought I would see the day when Christians would be forced to seek protection from the United States government to merely practice their faith.
The Little Sisters care for more than 13,000 of the elderly poor around the world. Their mission and faith is about life, not death, yet Obama's HHS mandate forces them to provide contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs---a direct violation of their faith---or pay massive fines.
The fines are already estimated at tens of millions of dollars, which obviously would destroy the ministry of the Little Sisters.
The Sisters sought Court protection once before and were granted a temporary protection from the government mandate.
Sr. Loraine Marie Maguire says, "All we ask is that our rights not be taken away."
She says, "We just want to keep serving the elderly poor as we have always done for the past 175 years."
"We look forward to the Supreme Court hearing our case, and pray for God's protection of our ministry," she said.
Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, says, "The Little Sisters spend their lives taking care of the elderly poor---that is work our government should applaud, not punish."
Rienzi says, "It is ridiculous for the federal government to claim, in this day and age, that it can't figure out how to distribute contraceptives without involving nuns and their health plans."
Clearly it is not about distributing pills.
It is about the clash of two very different ideologies---one built on the belief in a Creator God, the other on the supremacy of man above God.
This issue is about much more than the sisters and abortion pills. It strikes at the very heart of freedom---religious freedom---the reason this nation was founded.
It strikes at the heart of the sanctity of life itself.
This administration is so secularized and anti-Christian that Obama's Justice Department has actually argued before the Court that in "forcing the Little Sisters to provide abortion pills in their health plan 'does not' place a 'substantial burden' on the Sister's free exercise of religion."
Every Christian should remember the Little Sisters in prayer, asking God to protect them from the government mandates.
Every Christian should also remember how we got to this unthinkable place in history---silent Christians.
Abraham Lincoln said, "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
More importantly the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3, verse 7, there is "a time to be silent and a time to speak."
This is a time to "speak."
Be Vigilant. Be Pro-Active. Be Faithful.