Vicksburg Catholic School is among 10 Catholic groups in Mississippi suing the Obama administration over a mandate that most employers provide birth control coverage as part of health insurance plans.

Roman Catholic groups across the nation filed 12 lawsuits Monday. One was filed in federal court in the southern half of Mississippi. Vicksburg Catholic is part of that suit.

“We filed because we believe that religious freedom is a fundamental right,” said Mary Woodward, communications director for the Diocese of Jackson, the overseeing office for Roman Catholic parishes in the north and central part of Mississippi. “We’re not trying to prevent women from accessing birth control.

“This is strictly about our First Amendment rights to practice religious freedom,” she said.

Woodward said the issue is too important for no action to be taken, and the diocesan officials felt court was the best route.

“We felt the government was overreaching by requiring us to provide coverage that is contrary to our religious belief,” Woodward said. “If we are a nation that defends freedom around the world, we must defend our own freedom.”

Vicksburg Catholic School is the parent organization of St. Aloysius High School and St. Francis Xavier Elementary.

Michele Connelly, St. Al principal, was not available for comment, and SFXE Principal Mary Arledge declined to comment.

Other Mississippi plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, which serves the southern and coastal parts of the state, and St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital.

In addition to arguing against the birth-control measure, it says abortion, sterilization and contraception are “contrary to core Catholic doctrine.”

“Plaintiffs acknowledge that individuals in this country have a legal right to these medical services; they are, and will continue to be, freely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the government itself from making them more widely available,” the lawsuit says. “But the right to such services does not authorize the government to co-opt religious entities into providing or facilitating access to them.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has said it adopted the mandate for birth control coverage as a way to improve health care by allowing women to have more control over the timing of pregnancies. Leaders from several religious groups, including Catholics, have criticized the policy since President Barack Obama announced it in January.

The original rule includes a religious exemption that allows houses of worship to opt out of the mandate, but keeps the requirement in place for religiously affiliated charities.

In response to the political backlash, Obama offered to soften the rule so that insurers, instead of religious groups, would pay for birth control. However, Mississippi’s two bishops and others have said that the accommodation doesn’t go far enough.

A statement from the Diocese of Jackson online says, “This accommodation does not change the law. Even if the promise of accommodation is fulfilled entirely, religious charities, schools, and hospitals will still be forced to violate their beliefs.”

Other plaintiffs for the Mississippi lawsuit are:

• Resurrection Catholic School of Pascagoula and Sacred Heart Catholic School of Hattiesburg, which are part of the Biloxi Diocese.

• Two groups affiliated with the Biloxi Diocese, Catholic Social and Community Services Inc., and L’Epee Deaf Center Inc.

• St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison, which is part of the Jackson Diocese.

• Catholic Charities Inc., which is affiliated with the Jackson Diocese.