Notre Dame re-files its religious-freedom challenge to the mandate

I was very pleased to learn that, on Monday morning, the University of Notre Dame re-filed its challenge to the contraception-coverage mandate.  Michael Sean Winters has more details and analysis (with which I largely agree -- especially the discussion of "the freedom of the church") here.  And, the story in our local paper is here.  And, a short piece by me, in Notre Dame Magazine, about the University's challenge is here.

The University's President, Fr. John Jenkins, issued what I thought was an excellent statement regarding the University's decision to re-file, notwithstanding the so-called "accommodation."  (I have not yet been able to find a link to the statement.)  Instead of limiting his discussion to sometimes-technical issues of "material" and "formal" cooperation, he talks in terms of mission, character, integrity, and pluralism:

Our abiding concern in both the original filing of May 21, 2012 and this re-filing has been Notre
Dame’s freedom—and indeed the freedom of many religious organizations in this
country—to live out a religious mission. . . .

As I said regarding our original filing, because at its core this filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptive services.  For if we concede that the Government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately will undermine those institutions.  For if one Presidential Administration can override our religious purpose and use religious organizations to advance policies that undercut our values, then surely another Administration will do the same for another very different set of policies, each time invoking some concept of popular will or the public good, with the result that these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state, and not free from its infringements.  If that happens, it will be the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name.

This, it seems to me, is really what is at stake -- not only Notre Dame's legal right not to be compelled to do wrong, but its legal right to be Notre Dame.