If a man owes the bank $10,000 and can’t pay, he’s in big trouble; but, if he owes $10 million and can’t pay, then it’s the bank that’s in big trouble.

That’s the hidden principle in a moral stand off between the region’s Catholics and the federal government over its Obamacare mandate. The Pittsburgh and Erie Dioceses, together with affiliated organizations like Catholic Charities and parochial schools, have taken their case to federal court, contending they want nothing to do with mandatory health care packages that include contraception.

While the church itself is already exempt from covering contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization, its affiliated organizations are not exempt; however, the affiliates can “self-certify” their objections, and provide a list of employees to their insurance administrator. Those employees could receive the preventive services, and the government — not the diocese — would pay for them.

Bishop David Zubik, whose Pittsburgh Diocese includes Butler County, told a federal judge Tuesday that he would not sign the objection forms authorizing insurance administrators to provide these “morally illicit” medicines and procedures. He called the regulation “a slippery slope” — a backhanded way of coercing the church to go along with a practice it condemns.

Zubik contends that a signed objection wouldn’t really be an objection as much as a veiled consent.

And while nobody disputes that many individual Catholics already defy church teaching and avail themselves of these services, it’s another thing altogether to ask their spiritual leader to give any measure of consent, even when the consent takes the form of an objection.

The moral issues of religious freedom and reproductive rights have dominated the proceedings before U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab in Pittsburgh. But the case is also about sheer numbers: There are 900,000 Catholics in Western Pennsylvania — 78 million Catholics nationwide — and the Obama administration needs their willing participation for Obamacare to have any chance to function properly.

The bishops say otherwise. They say their congregants should not participate, and those employed by the church will not participate. They would rather pay punitive fines amounting to millions of dollars, knowing the fines endanger much of the good work their charities perform.

Zubik is willing to accept this risk because he knows Obamacare needs to enroll Catholic organizations. Health care plans work only when they have sufficient numbers.

Zubik understands the power of numbers. The Catholic Church long has supported organized labor. Obama, as a former community organizer, also deals in the currency of people — and in this case, the people have more value than the dollars.

The court needs to respect the church’s right to religious freedom and rule that the objection form is coercive. It should grant the injunction Zubik seeks.

The Obama administration also needs to respect the church’s religious freedom. Obama should be willing to seek compromise with the bishops.

Obama’s legacy is deeply invested in his health care plan — and like the man who owes $10 million, he needs to find a way to repay it, or he’s in big trouble.