The nuns from the Little Sisters of the Poor have been dealing with a court case for a year now, just because they stood up to their belief against contraception which state law required them to endorse.
Now, there is a chance for the government to make the nuns' legal worries go away, and American bishops are urging U.S. authorities to "seize that opportunity."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' legal counsel recommended ways to enable religious workers to comply with the government's law on contraceptives without violating their faith.
The alternatives include having employees seeking contraception to have a separate plan for it under the same insurer. The government may also opt to create a separate plan to provide the coverage.
"In a nation dedicated to religious liberty, church-state conflict on this scale should be avoided whenever possible – and once started, ended as soon and as agreeably as possible," the bishops' legal counsel said in recent comments made to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The legal counsel also pointed out that the nuns already described in good faith the best way to reach an amicable solution on the case, and it is up to the government now to find a way to compromise.
The bishops, however, clearly stated that they are not endorsing any form of contraception, and are just presenting options to end the nuns' legal woes.
The Roman Catholic officials stressed that instead of curing or preventing illnesses, contraceptives actually cause health problems and even miscarriages.
"The intended effect of contraceptives is to take a perfectly healthy human reproductive system and render it temporarily or permanently infertile. As a matter of sound health care policy and practice, this is entirely backwards, as the goal of medicine, properly understood, is to cure or prevent health problems," the bishops' legal counsel said in their comments, as quoted by The Catholic News Agency.
