HHS thus creates and enforces a new distinction - alien both to our Catholic tradition and to federal law - between our houses of worship and our great ministries of service to our neighbors: namely, the poor, the homeless, the sick, the students in our schools and universities, and others in need, of any faith community or none.

We are commanded both to love and to serve the Lord; laws that protect our freedom to comply with one of these commands but not the other are nothing to celebrate. Indeed, they must be rejected, for they create a “second class” of citizenship within our religious community.