Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has warned that the state's Catholic schools could lose access to public funding if they refuse to grant religious exemptions to vaccination requirements.

“It has come to my attention that Catholic schools in Florida might refuse to grant religious exemptions to vaccination requirements for the upcoming school year,” Uthmeier wrote in a July 31 letter to Michael Sheedy, executive director of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops describes itself as the “nonpartisan public policy voice on behalf of the Catholic bishops of Florida”.

Uthmeier wrote that at least one of Florida's seven Catholic dioceses was refusing to grant religious exemptions to vaccination requirements. According to the attorney general, the diocese argued that Catholic teaching does not prohibit receiving vaccines, even where they have been developed or produced using cell lines derived from abortions.

“Such a policy, if true, is concerning because Florida law requires public and private schools to exempt students from [vaccine requirements] if a parent has a religious objection,” Uthmeier wrote.

Florida requires pupils attending public schools to receive a number of routine vaccinations, including those against polio, pertussis, tetanus, chickenpox, hepatitis B, rubella, measles and mumps. The state does not require annual influenza vaccination or vaccination against Covid-19.

Uthmeier acknowledged that a religious school “may itself be able to claim an exemption from the requirements 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,” he continued.

Uthmeier also cited a 2020 document issued by the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which stated that vaccination “is not, as a rule, a moral obligation”.

“Having no legitimate religious reason to refuse granting religious exemptions to the taking of abortion-derived vaccines, Catholic schools in Florida should comply with Florida law,” he wrote.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center states that, in the United States, vaccines for rubella, chickenpox and hepatitis A are produced using historic fetal cell lines derived from abortions, and that there are currently no alternative products for those vaccines.

Uthmeier warned that schools refusing to grant religious exemptions “could jeopardize eligibility for state educational scholarship programs”.

Florida operates one of the largest school choice programmes in the United States, allowing eligible families to use publicly funded scholarships and education savings accounts to attend schools other than their local public school.

“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,” Uthmeier wrote.

He requested a response by August 7.

The Catholic Herald contacted both the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Catholic Bioethics Center for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.