Does Florida Attorney General (a Catholic) expect the Church to totally fall in line with the state? America sets a risky precedent that could cripple Christianity.
On July 31, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, requesting that they comply with Florida law granting religious exemptions to school vaccine policies.
Given the role of the letter’s signatory, one might expect an argument grounded in law concerning the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state. However, that is not the case. Uthmeier, who is Catholic, has instead chosen to frame his arguments theologically. He explains to the bishops of Florida what he holds to be the correct interpretation and application of the Church’s authoritative teaching.
He argues that this magisterium would obligate the bishops to apply the state law providing for a religious exemption from the vaccination mandate without exception. Uthmeier acknowledges that local Churches could invoke a religious exemption from the state law’s mandate but hopes that they will not. In fact, his letter aims to explain precisely why this would contradict the magisterium of the Catholic Church.
This episode has not gone unnoticed in the United States, where most commentators have either defended or criticized Uthmeier’s legal theology. However, only one article in the Jesuit magazine America has focused on the central issue: a public official using Catholic theology and magisterium to compel Florida’s bishops to comply with the law.
This is not merely a matter of religious freedom in a country where, under the Trump administration, this seems to have become a central issue in domestic politics. More troubling is the fact that with his letter, the Florida Attorney General has substituted theology for the law and assumed the role of authentic interpreter of the Catholic magisterium. According to the magisterium itself, this task belongs to bishops in communion with the Pope.
Uthmeier has opened the door to what could become a state theology or, at the very least, the legitimization of political power as an authoritative interpreter of religious doctrine, while reminding the bishops that it coincides perfectly with state law.
This is a further step in the “takeover” of the Catholic Church’s magisterium by political Catholicism aligned with the Trump administration. On the other hand, it represents the establishment of Christianity as a de facto state religion. This should be of primary concern to Catholics, especially parents who, for religious reasons, do not want their children to be vaccinated as required by their schools. They should be concerned because aligning a certain interpretation of the Catholic magisterium with state law undermines the freedom they invoke by seeking a religious exemption.
This use of Catholic teaching, transformed into state law by Uthmeier’s interpretation, comes after months of intense activity by the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops on two central aspects of absolute human dignity (to which the state attorney refers in his “order” to the bishops): death penalty and immigration. Between May and July, the Florida bishops appealed to Governor DeSantis five times to stay the execution of a death row inmate. On July 27, they published a pastoral letter calling for in-depth reflection on the death penalty. Their commitment to protecting undocumented immigrants and reforming federal immigration laws culminated on August 5 with an open letter to Florida’s two senators in Washington: Rick Scott and Ashley Moody.
From a political standpoint, it should not come as much of a surprise that the state of Florida is trying to put pressure on Catholic bishops who openly question two central policies of the Trump administration. What is troubling about all this is that this retaliation against the bishops takes place on a theological level, involving a selective use of the Catholic Church’s magisterium for its own advantage. The former is not within the purview of state power in a democratic system; the latter shows that Uthmeier’s “Trumpian Catholicism” has now taken precedence over the Catholic faith itself.
