Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier last week sent a letter (full text) to Florida's Conference of Catholic Bishops complaining that some Catholic schools in Florida may be adopting what Uthmeier describes as the position of the National Catholic Bioethics Center that "Catholic schools ... cannot grant an exemption from vaccination on religious grounds since the Catholic Church does not teach that the use of vaccinations produced in cell lines derived from tissue from an aborted fetus is intrinsically evil."
The Attorney General's letter stated in part:
Of course, a religious school may itself be able to claim an exemption from the requirement to grant religious exemptions if granting such an exemption would violate the religious tenets of the school. But as a Catholic, I am confident that the teachings of the Catholic Church do not require Catholic schools to compel students to take vaccines derived from the tissue of aborted children against the sincerely held religious objections of their parents....
Because Church teaching obligates the Church to respect the right of conscience of persons who, for moral or religious reasons, object to the use of abortion-derived vaccines, there is no religious basis on which to reject a person's claim of religious conscience for refusing to take such vaccines.... I therefor 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. If the Conference nevertheless refuses to comply with Florida law, then please state clearly the religious grounds on which Catholic schools may force persons to take vaccines derived from abortions against their deeply held moral and religious objections.
Please provide a response in writing no later than August 7, 2026.
OSV News. reports on Notre Dame Professor Rick Garnett's criticism of Uthmeier's letter. It also says that documents on the National Catholic Bioethics Center’s website do not appear to take the position that Uthmeier attributes to it.
[Corrected. An earlier version of this post named the Florida Attorney General incorrectly, transposing his name with that of the Executive Director of Florida's Conference of Catholic Bishops].
