A Catholic charity in Michigan has filed a federal lawsuit after state officials ended its designation as a specialist women’s treatment provider, in a dispute over the ministry’s religious beliefs on abortion and contraception.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the lawsuit on Friday, June 26, on behalf of Catholic Charities of Ingham, Eaton and Clinton Counties, which serves vulnerable families in the Lansing region.

The case, Catholic Charities of Ingham, Eaton and Clinton Counties v Hertel, was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Southern Division. ADF said the lawsuit challenges actions by Michigan officials that allegedly forced the Catholic ministry to choose between its religious beliefs and access to public funding.

Catholic Charities provides healthcare, dental and mental-health services, substance-use treatment, counselling, financial coaching, adoption and foster care, help with food, clothing and prescription drugs, refugee resettlement and immigration legal assistance. Its own website says the organisation operates from Cristo Rey and St Vincent campuses in Lansing, with Cristo Rey focused on basic needs, healthcare and counselling, and St Vincent on child welfare, refugee resettlement, healthcare and immigration law.

ADF alleges that state officials launched an investigation after learning of the charity’s religious beliefs about abortion and contraception, then created policies targeting those beliefs and removed state funding for key services.

“Catholic Charities is a force for good in the Lansing region, serving at-risk populations within its community with practical and spiritual resources,” said Jeremiah Galus, senior counsel at ADF.

“Yet because it operates in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church, Michigan officials who disagree with its views on the sanctity of human life have targeted the ministry and withheld public benefits. The Constitution forbids the government from punishing faith-based organisations in this way, which is why we’re urging the court to restore Catholic Charities’ First Amendment freedom to continue serving Lansing women and families according to its religious beliefs.”

Deacon Bob Bauer, interim chief executive of Catholic Charities, said the ministry’s Cristo Rey Counseling Center helped mothers overcome mental-health and substance-use disorders.

“Rooted in Jesus’s love and guided by the teachings of the Catholic Church, Catholic Charities exists to serve the most vulnerable populations within the Lansing region,” he said.

“In particular, the work at our Cristo Rey Counseling Center helps mothers overcome mental-health and substance-use disorders and live healthy, fulfilled lives for themselves and their children.

“Yet the state is on a mission to shut us down, not because of any complaint or failure on our part, but simply because of our religious beliefs about the dignity of human life.”

According to ADF, Catholic Charities serves nearly 79,000 people each year. The Cristo Rey Counseling Center is licensed by the state and had served for more than 10 years as a designated Women’s Specialty Services and Enhanced Women’s Services provider through Michigan’s health department.

ADF said the centre is the only provider in the Lansing region offering those specialist treatment services to women, and that in 2024 and 2025 it provided nearly 400 therapy sessions through the programmes.

The legal group said state health officials and Mid-State Health Network, which contracts with local substance-use-disorder treatment providers to deliver Medicaid and block-grant-funded services, demanded a meeting with Catholic Charities in March to discuss the ministry’s religious beliefs and practices.

After the meeting, ADF said, state officials discontinued Cristo Rey’s women’s specialty service provider designations without citing a complaint, audit finding or quality-of-care concern. The legal group said officials pointed instead to Cristo Rey’s “internal policies and procedures”, which ADF characterises as its religious beliefs and practices.

Mid-State Health Network then demanded that Catholic Charities stop taking new admissions into the women’s treatment programmes and produce a plan to transition existing clients, according to ADF. It has also stopped referring women to the ministry’s programmes, the legal group said.

Catholic Charities said it had offered to continue providing services to existing clients and to cover the cost itself, in order to avoid disruption in care.

The lawsuit comes amid continuing national disputes over whether faith-based organisations that receive public funding may be required to comply with government policies that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Michigan officials had not issued a detailed public response to the lawsuit at the time of writing.