It is harder and harder to keep up! Lawsuits keep being filed, or refiled, by religious nonprofit organizations and by companies of conviction. And court rulings keep being issued, in the great majority of cases handing a victory to the nonprofit or company in the form of a court order stopping application of the mandate to the plaintiffs while the courts consider definitive rulings. To keep up, visit–daily!–the scorecard and huge collection of resources maintained by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty: HHS Mandate Information Central.

As of this moment, the numbers are:

* 91 cases and over 300 plaintiffs

* 46 for-profit cases and 45 nonprofit cases; 2 of the cases are class action

* 33 of the companies have so far won injunctions and only 6 have been denied injunctions

* 19 of the nonprofits have so far won injunctions and only 1 has been denied an injunction

* 2 of the for-profit cases have been accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court

The nuns and birth control. On the last day of 2013, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, acting for the Court, issued a temporary injunction stopping the application of the mandate to the Little Sisters of the Poor and several related organizations. The Supreme Court might extend the injunction or reverse it or even decide to take up this case right away itself.

The case is embarrassing for the administration, no matter what the Supreme Court decides. Just imagine: even though the administration last summer finalized an “accommodation” that it insists eliminates any genuine religious freedom problems a religious nonprofit could have, Justice Sotomayor was willing to call at least a temporary halt to the application of the mandate to these religious nonprofit organizations. And just imagine: the administration insists that this small group of nuns must participate in an insurance scheme that means that their insurer must offer to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortifacients (emergency birth control, certain IUDs) for the group’s employees!

This case involving the Little Sisters of the Poor should remind us of another group of nuns from the very early years of the founding of the United States. In 1727 the Ursuline Sisters arrived in New Orleans from France and started a convent and educational services. In 1803, because of the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans came under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and the nuns, who knew how anti-religion the French revolutionaries were proving to be, were fearful that they would lose their religious freedom under this new US government. So they wrote to President Thomas Jefferson, asking for assurances that they would not be disturbed in their work by the government.

Jefferson wrote back to the nuns,”the principles of the constitution and the government of the United States are a sure guarantee [that your property] will be preserved to you sacred and inviolate.” Your institution,” he wrote, “will be permitted to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority.” And he said, “be assured [your religious institution] will meet all the protection which my office can give it.”

Comforting words. Reflecting on them a few years ago, after President Obama took office, Father Larry Snyder of Catholic Charities USA, asked, “Do we need to dust this off and once again assure faith-based organizations that we will live up to Thomas Jefferson’s protection?” Reassurance is needed. Will the Supreme Court offer it?