The Little Sisters of the Poor are in legal jeopardy following a federal district court decision earlier this month challenging their religious exemption from the “contraceptive mandate” that was shamefully imposed upon them and many other religious objectors beginning in 2011. If this decision is not reversed on appeal, the Little Sisters will face yet again the ultimatum that led to their many years of court battles over this issue beginning in 2013.

Responding to this latest round of legal harassment of the Little Sisters, RFI President David Trimble and RFI Associate Vice President Nathan Berkeley write:

In the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s teaching “that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.” He further declared: “This particular doctrine … is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.”

While much maligned when first issued, Humanae Vitae is understood by some to have aged extraordinarily well. But even if it has proven to be nothing short of prophetic in important ways over the past half-century, the vast majority of Americans in 2025 don’t accept its instruction. In part, that’s because most of our neighbors embrace the principle of individual autonomy as their moral baseline for human sexuality.

…

Many Americans undoubtedly look with suspicion and even contempt on the Catholic convictions surrounding artificial contraception that the Little Sisters of the Poor receive as true and binding. But it is precisely in such circumstances that religious freedom is intended to provide its most robust protections. No more ultimatums. Leave them alone and let them serve.

Read the full article in National Catholic Register: “Let the Little Sisters of the Poor Be Faithful.”