The state of Florida and the bishops of Florida are embroiled in a heated debate over vaccine policies in the state’s Catholic schools.
The state government is expanding religious exemptions to required childhood vaccines, and the attorney general has demanded that Florida’s Catholic schools comply in order to maintain eligibility for state scholarships and vouchers.
But the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops says the state is violating its freedom of religion by attempting to dictate its application of Catholic teaching.
Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a plan to end all vaccine mandates in schools. Last month, his administration removed four vaccines from the childhood immunization schedule required to attend public and private schools in the state.
In addition, his administration has introduced a rule to expand religious exemptions to required vaccines. The new rule, which is pending final approval, would allow exemptions for personal “moral and ethical” objections under the category of “religious exemptions” to vaccine requirements. The state also permits medical exemptions.
Childhood vaccination rates have dropped in the United States in recent years, as more families apply for exemptions to childhood vaccines.
Reasons for seeking an exemption vary. Some families worry that vaccines could cause health problems or negatively impact their children’s natural immune systems.
In addition, some childhood vaccines are manufactured utilizing fetal cell lines derived from the tissue of aborted babies, leading some Catholics to object to their use, on the grounds that doing so would be cooperating with the evil of abortion.
The Vatican has weighed in on the issue several times in the past 20 years, saying that if no ethical alternative form of such a vaccine is available, accepting the vaccine constitutes remote material cooperation in evil, and is acceptable under a Catholic bioethics framework where there is a proportionate reason — for example, the prevention of a serious disease.
States and dioceses vary in their exemption policies. None of Florida’s seven Catholic dioceses permit religious exemptions from required vaccines, although medical exemptions are allowed.
On July 31, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, demanding Florida’s Catholic schools allow religious exemptions for vaccine requirements.
Failure to do so, he said, would risk loss of eligibility for state scholarship and voucher programs.
“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,” Uthmeier wrote in the letter, which he posted on social media.
“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.”
Uthmeier called it “concerning” that some Catholic dioceses have openly embraced guidance on vaccines from the National Catholic Bioethics Center, which states, “Catholic schools or a Catholic diocese 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.”
Michael Sheedy, executive director of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, responded to Uthmeier with a fiery letter of his own, citing the bishops’ right to make religious judgments for themselves.
“The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) and the Catholic bishops in Florida do not have to justify to your office their position on Catholic teaching and their reasons for the current vaccine policies,” the letter argued.
Sheedy argued that the Florida bishops’ vaccine policy is based on a Catholic understanding of the moral duty to protect public health and the common good. He pointed to Vatican documents affirming that vaccines developed with illicit cell lines may be used for these reasons.
Sheedy charged that it is a violation of religious freedom when the government can decide and interpret religious principles for a religious institution.
“Respectfully, any insinuation that a government official can dictate to the Catholic Church (or any religion) how to apply her tenets and dogma, violates well-established constitutional religious freedom rights,” he said. “It is beyond cavil that the bishops, not the state, decide how to interpret and apply Catholic principles and theology.”
In comments to The Pillar, Sheedy said the policy of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops is not violating the parental rights of parents who sincerely object to vaccines.
Rather, he said, these parents have the freedom to pursue other educational paths, including Catholic virtual schooling and homeschooling.
Canon law states, “Parents are to entrust their children to those schools which provide a Catholic education. If they are unable to do this, they are obliged to take care that suitable Catholic education is provided for their children outside the schools.”
“Attendance at a diocesan school remains voluntary,” Sheedy said. “Catholic education is a great good where it is available, but attendance is not required.”
“There is a responsibility for school communities to protect vulnerable persons and promote the common good; as vaccination is considered a morally acceptable means of preventing infection, schools can use vaccines to promote the common good.”
He noted that the Vatican has repeatedly reaffirmed the duty to protect the health of vulnerable members of the community, such as students or their family members who may be particularly vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illnesses.
“While it may be possible in some contexts to isolate oneself in a manner that protects vulnerable persons, such as remote work, this is highly difficult to achieve – if not impossible – in a school community setting,” he said.
A few days after Sheedy sent his letter, Uthmeier posted again on twitter.com, reiterating his threat to cut funding to Florida’s Catholic schools.
“I did not realize the Catholic Church had a ‘religious mission’ to force vaccinate students over the religious, conscience, and medical objections of their families — including vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines,” he said.
“If the Church’s new position is that vaccines that have previously been ‘permitted’ are now ‘mandated,’ then that is a completely new teaching. But if that is indeed their religious mission, it is not for the state to dispute it. The Church should nevertheless recognize the confusing nature of this ‘religious mission’ in light of some U.S. dioceses not following it,” he continued. “Further, the Catechism strongly emphasizes the right of parents to manage the healthcare of their children and the fundamental right of conscience.”
“A separate question is whether a private school that doesn’t follow state laws protecting parental rights and deeply held beliefs should still be permitted to participate in state programs and receive state funding,” he said.
What has the Church come to that the Governor is now doing a better job upholding Catholic teaching than our own bishops?