Miami archbishop says state funding threat over vaccine exemptions exceeds its authority

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami asserted in his latest column that Church teaching on vaccinations means the grounds for a religious exemption don’t exist for Catholic schools in the archdiocese, placing him at odds with Florida’s Catholic attorney general, who is threatening to withhold state funds for not allowing religious exemptions. 

The showdown between Florida’s Catholic bishops and Attorney General James Uthmeier centers on Florida’s requirement that private schools provide religious exemptions for parents who object to mandatory childhood vaccines on religious grounds. 

In an Aug. 14 column for the Florida Catholic, Archbishop Wenski said that a July 31 letter from Uthmeier contained a "not-so-veiled threat" and was "an unprecedented and unexpected 'overreach' by a state official that intrudes upon our religious freedom under the protections afforded us by the First Amendment: The bishops, not a state functionary, decide how to interpret and apply Catholic principles and theology." 

Florida's Catholic schools don't grant religious exemptions, Archbishop Wenski wrote, because the vaccines required by state law don't conflict with Church teaching, though schools do accommodate medical exemptions. He noted about 95,000 students attend the state's diocesan schools and said the policy protects the common good, citing the Catechism's teaching that "life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God."

While Archbishop Wenski’s moral arguments for vaccination are supported by a 2020 doctrinal note from the Vatican on COVID-19 vaccines, his latest column does not address instances where parents with properly formed consciences feel compelled to avoid inoculations made using aborted fetal cell lines to culture the vaccine. The doctrinal note, as the attorney general’s letter observed, does address those parents, saying, “Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent.”

As Zeale News previously reported, the dispute follows years of differing approaches among U.S. bishops over religious and conscience exemptions to vaccines developed using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses.

More than 500,000 Florida students use state scholarships to attend private schools, including Catholic ones.

Neither side has signaled the dispute is resolved.