Groups protest in March in New York over a rule that most employers provide health care insurance coverage for contraception.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Mary Matalin, a founding member of the board of Conscience Cause, a coalition opposing the Department of Health and Human Services' mandate, has worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and was counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Matalin is a CNN political contributor, author and host of a weekly nationally syndicated radio program.

(CNN) -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This is the first line of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Apparently, this now only applies to the certain instances for which President Barack Obama sees fit.

In recent months, a far-reaching regulation emanating from "Obamacare" and imposed by the Department of Health and Human Services requires church-affiliated hospitals, agencies and universities to pay for services that violate their faith (such as contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs) in the health insurance they provide employees.

Mary Matalin

For the first time in our nation's history, the government has launched a full-fledged assault on our religious institutions to force them to pay for services that go against their religious convictions. The compromise offered by the administration allowing religious institutions a year to transition to the new system is no compromise. They are still forced to pay for services in direct conflict with their faith or incur severe penalties that could effectively drive them out of business.

This is the most despicable violation of religious liberty that this nation has ever seen. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, outlined it best when he said, "In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences." A year is a pitiful concession to make when they are essentially telling people that if they do not violate their conscience, the government will put them out of business.

Catholic institutions, however, are not taking this assault lying down. This week, 43 of them have filed lawsuits across the nation challenging the mandate's intrusion on religious liberty.

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Religious liberty at stake in battle over contraception rule