Leaders of Catholic colleges in Indiana are weighing their options after a federal order requiring religious-based employers to provide birth-control coverage to female employees starting next year.

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services says religiously
affiliated nonprofit organizations must provide coverage starting Aug. 1, 2013. Affiliated groups must provide services ranging from implanted contraceptive devices to the morning-after pill.

The measure was first introduced in August.

"When it came out it was very surprising and it prompted a significant backlash from a wide array of religious institutions and individuals from a broad ideological spectrum," said Notre Dame Law Professor Carter Snead.

Religious leaders hoped the Obama administration would widen the exemptions in the federal health care overhaul, but that backlash didn't cause leaders to back off.

"It's a very straightforward command by the federal government to act against their sincerely held beliefs," Snead said.

The ruling means religious-based nonprofits will have some difficult decisions to make by next August.

"These catholic institutions are put in an impossible position to either comply with the law and violate your deeply held principals by being complicit and people engaging in activities you believe are completely wrong, or you get out of the business of serving people and employing people who are of different faiths," Snead said.

It's a conflict between church and state he argues goes beyond Catholicism -- challenging religious freedom.

But others say what's at stake isn't about beliefs, but equality.

"I see it as a human right thing and everybody should have it included in their insurance," said South Bend Catholic Sam Mourad.

It's unlikely the order will be overturned, but officials at the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College and the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend say they're considering options that include working with Congress to expand the religious groups exempt under the federal health care overhaul.

Brother John R. Paige of Holy Cross says the ruling puts the school in direction opposition to church teachings.