Leading evangelical college partners with Catholic University in suit against HHS mandate

July 19, 2012

One of the nation’s leading evangelical Protestant colleges, in partnership with the Catholic University of America, has filed suit against the HHS mandate.

“The mandate, which is a regulation under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, forces both institutions to violate their deeply held religious beliefs by providing access to abortion-causing drugs or paying severe fines,” Wheaton College said in a statement. “This alliance marks the first-ever partnership between Catholic and evangelical institutions to oppose the same regulation in the same court.”

“Wheaton College and other distinctively Christian institutions are faced with a clear and present threat to our religious liberty,” said Philip Ryken, the college’s president. “Our first president, the abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard, believed it was imperative to act in defense of freedom. In bringing this suit, we act in defense of freedom again.”

“As the president of the national university of the Catholic Church, I am happy to express solidarity with our evangelical brothers and sisters from Wheaton College as they challenge the HHS mandate,” said John Garvey, president of Catholic University. “Wheaton's lawsuit is another sign of how troubling many people of faith find the government's efforts to chip away at our first freedom.”

Ryken and Garvey explained their joint lawsuit in an op-ed column for the Wall Street Journal.

 

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Further information:

• Wheaton College Sues Over HHS Mandate (Wheaton College)
• Full text of lawsuit (Becket Fund)
• Ryken and Garvey: An Evangelical-Catholic Stand on Liberty (Wall Street Journal)