JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida\u2019s Catholic Attorney General James Uthmeier is taking on the state\u2019s Catholic schools, and tens of thousands of state-funded private school scholarships could be at stake.<\/p>\n
Speaking only with Action News Jax, Uthmeier explained his office fielded concerns raised by Florida parents who said their students\u2019 Catholic schools would not allow for religious exemptions to vaccine requirements next school year.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier argued some of those concerns specifically revolved around vaccinations that are produced from cell lines originally derived from aborted fetuses decades ago<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re confused because the Catholic Church has long respected pro-life religious principles and they\u2019ve got very serious objections that appear to be based on legitimate religious grounds for not wanting to take certain vaccines,\u201d said Uthmeier.<\/p>\n In a letter sent to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops<\/a>, Uthmeier argued state law<\/a> requires both public and private schools to provide those exemptions, unless a school cites religious grounds justifying its no-exemption policy.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of wear two hats here. As a government official, I can\u2019t tell an independent religious church what to do. That\u2019s not appropriate,\u201d said Uthmeier. \u201dBut as a Catholic who is well informed and well read, I can certainly see in my private lay capacity that their decisions here are not reflective of Catholic moral theology.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, a spokesperson with the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops told Action News Jax, \u201cWe are reviewing the letter and will respond to the Attorney General by his requested date of August 7\u201d.<\/p>\n Uthmeier warned the church its schools could be at risk of losing the ability to accept state vouchers if it fails to cite the religious grounds justifying its policy.<\/p>\n Nearly 87,000 students attending more than 230 Catholic schools across the state use those vouchers<\/a>, including more than 11,000 here in Northeast Florida alone.<\/p>\n \u201cWe took money out of the public schools, we put it in your pocket and now we\u2019re going to take that money out of your pocket so that we can bully the largest religious organization in the State of Florida,\u201d said Reverend Dr. Russell Meyer.<\/p>\n Meyer is head pastor at St. John\u2019s Lutheran Church here in Jacksonville and also serves as Executive Director of the Florida Council of Churches.<\/p>\n He argued Uthmeier is overstepping his bounds and putting students at risk.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is advocating for the outbreak of measles in Catholic schools,\u201d said Meyer. \u201dThat\u2019s what the takeaway is for me.\u201d<\/p>\n But Uthmeier argued the church needs to justify its policy.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it seems like the Conference of Bishops here in Florida is not following or is inconsistent with its own teachings,\u201d said Uthmeier.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida\u2019s Catholic Attorney General James Uthmeier is taking on the state\u2019s Catholic schools, and tens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6273,982,6277,7840,3757,147704,73500,28,147709,147708,56468,2239,969,116,118,117,971,10417,6278,634,147706,147707,9332,34238,147705,6279],"class_list":["post-363300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-6273","tag-action_news","tag-attorney_general","tag-ben_becker","tag-catholic","tag-catholic_church","tag-cbs_47","tag-florida","tag-florida_conference_of_catholic_bishops","tag-florida_council_of_churches","tag-fox_30","tag-general","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jake","tag-jake_stowan","tag-james_uthmeyer","tag-local","tag-reverend_doctor","tag-russell_meyer","tag-stowan","tag-taneka_hughes","tag-ufmeyer","tag-uthmeyer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}