TALLAHASSEE – Attorney General James Uthmeier is putting the Roman Catholic Church on notice — if church officials take taxpayer funded vouchers for their schools, they should accept vaccine exemptions for students, too.
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In a letter sent Friday to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, Uthmeier, citing the Catholic Catechism, Pope Leo and scripture, argued Catholic doctrine does not allow its schools to reject vaccine exemptions for religious reasons.
“I therefore urge Catholic schools to comply with Florida law and grant religious exemptions to school vaccine policies. Failure to comply could jeopardize eligibility for state educational scholarship programs,” Uthmeier wrote in a letter addressed to FCCB executive director Michael Sheedy.
The letter comes 10 days before most school districts in the state open their doors for the 2026-2027 school year.
Most students enrolled in Florida’s Catholic schools now use state vouchers to help pay tuition, with about 88% of the more than 94,000 Catholic students getting the state-funded scholarships last school year, according to data from the conference. Currently, more than 500,000 students across the state participate in the program.
In response to Uthmeier’s letter, the conference issued a statement saying church leaders are reviewing the letter and will respond to the attorney general.
“Be assured, Florida’s Catholic schools are operating in accord with the law and Church teaching,” wrote Michele Taylor, a spokesperson for the conference.
Florida law requires students be vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, Hepatitis B and chickenpox before enrolling in school. However, the law also allows for exemptions for medical or religious reasons.
Religious exemptions are easy to obtain and have become more popular in recent years as more parents delay or avoid getting their children immunized.
The Diocese of Orlando, which oversees nearly 40 schools in eight Central Florida counties, does not accept religious exemptions for state-required school vaccines, however, according to its website.
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A 2014 letter from the then Bishop John Noonan, posted to the site, notes the church does not grant religious exemptions “since the Catholic Church does not teach that the use of
vaccinations, even those produced in cell lines derived from tissue of aborted fetuses, is
intrinsically evil.” The letter added, “allowing such an exemption could endanger the safety of our
children, teachers and parents.”
Families who want to enroll their children in Central Florida Catholic schools must provide the state-issued immunization form to a school before they will be accepted, the diocese website says. The schools accept medical exemptions but only if they indicate a “valid clinical” reason that is approved by a physician licensed in the state.
In his letter, Uthmeier did not single out one of the state’s seven dioceses, but did refer to the immunization policies of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee.
Uthmeier and several of Florida’s top Republican leaders and their staff are Catholics, including Gov. Ron DeSantis and incoming Education Commissioner Henry Mack.
DeSantis has pushed to repeal all vaccine mandates and expand the state’s vaccine exemption requirements. All legislative attempts have failed, including a bill earlier this year which would have created a new “conscience” category for parents to opt out of immunizations for their children and require health care workers to provide alternative vaccine schedules.
The conference has lobbied against these bills, urging lawmakers to keep vaccine requirements.
Citing church-affiliated statements, Uthmeier’s letter argues vaccines aren’t a “moral obligation,” and should not be compelled if they are derived from fetal tissue.
The Catholic Church is strongly against abortion, but its stance on vaccines derived from fetal tissue is more nuanced. The Vatican has said it is “morally acceptable” to use cell lines from aborted fetuses if there are no other alternatives available.
The rubella vaccine, a part of the MMR vaccine, was created using the cell lines of an aborted fetus but is permissible because there are no other alternatives to prevent the contagious and deadly disease.
In his letter, Uthmeier quotes a statement from the Vatican on the morality of using COVID-19 vaccines, which states “practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”
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The Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this story.