Government · Statewide · FL · August 20, 2026
Catholic Bishops Cite Church-State Separation in Message to AG
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The attorney general's July 31, 2026 letter does not argue from public-health law alone — it argues from the Church's own book. Reporting says Uthmeier, himself a Catholic, cited the Catechism, Scripture, Vatican statements and Pope Leo, and pointed to 2011 guidance from the National Catholic Bioethics Center and to other U.S. dioceses that do grant exemptions, to tell the bishops their own doctrine does not support their policy. The whole force of the demand rests on an alleged gap between what the Church teaches and what some Florida diocesan schools do.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Close the gap by reading, not by resenting. Get your own diocese's written school immunization policy and the paragraph of doctrinal reasoning attached to it, and read the Catechism sections on conscience and the common good that the letter leans on, so you can say what your school's policy actually is and why. If the policy's stated rationale is thin or unpublished, ask the superintendent to publish the reasoning in full — that is what removes the leverage.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Nothing has actually been withdrawn. The letter's operative words, as quoted in reporting, are that failure to comply "could jeopardize eligibility for state educational scholarship programs" — a conditional, arriving roughly ten days before schools opened, with more than 500,000 Florida students on state scholarships. Archbishop Wenski called it a "veiled threat," which is precisely the point: an unspecified consequence frightens more households than a specified one.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Cost the worst case out loud. Ask your school's business office how many of its students use state scholarships and what share of the budget that is, and ask the scholarship-funding organization what the written procedure and notice period are for removing a school from eligibility, and who decides. A named number and a named process on one page is worth more this month than any amount of reassurance.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The demand was not made quietly. Uthmeier announced the letter on X the day he sent it, addressed it to the bishops' conference through its executive director, and singled out "at least one diocese" as the offender — reporting identifies the Diocese of Orlando's published policy, which states its schools do not recognize a religious objection. One institution is named, held still, and set against parents claiming conscience rights.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
Refuse the isolation. If your parish or school is in a diocese named in this dispute, say so plainly and supportively in writing to the pastor or superintendent rather than letting the diocese answer alone; if you are in a diocese that is not named, ask your own chancery to state its policy publicly too, so no single diocese stands as the lone outlier. Decline to repeat framings that pit "Catholic parents" against "the bishops."
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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