So when do they begin shutting down schools and hospitals?
My guess is that hospitals & some colleges won’t close. They’ll be severed from the Church and go secular. Or they’ll be sold to secular outfits. They have no problem with the mandate and would rather be treated like regular for-profits or non-profits and leave religion out of it totally.
Most so-called Catholic hospitals are not operated by dioceses anyway. Rather, they’re run by lay boards and old religious orders get some of the proceeds as beaucoup retirement income that enables them to say pretty much anything they like and not get caught up with by Rome. This is like the best secret in all of American Catholicism. You know the LCWR mess of last spring. Yup, in many cases the exact same congregations are involved.
They don’t. The hospitals and universities will try to sneak by and will be called on it in many places because of the pressure. They will end up going secular, but they’ve been going there for years anyway. It would have been only a matter of time, although Catholics don’t like to say that. No big deal. You can’t lose what you no longer have.
The real action will be at the diocesan level. Things there are going to shut down or be scaled back.