Where have pro-life Democrats gone?
President Obama is having a hard time finding an ambassador to the Vatican.
According to Massimo Franco, author of “Parallel Empires,” a recently published book on U.S.-Vatican relations, the Obama administration has put forward three candidates for consideration but each of them have been deemed insufficiently pro-life by the Vatican.
One of the few conditions the Vatican places on diplomats accredited to the Holy See is that they hold pro-life views in line with Church teaching.
That’s a minimal requirement. Is that so hard to find?!
Yes.
Franco says the administration is now looking for a professional diplomat rather than a political appointee because finding an authentically pro-life candidate within the Democratic Party is proving impossible. The task is further hampered by the administration’s desire to reward individuals who gave donations to Obama’s campaign.
Maybe this is an opportunity to cross party lines. Or…..religious ones?
However, in view of the absence of qualified Catholic candidates, insiders say another option could be for the administration to choose a non-Catholic pro-life candidate rather than a Catholic whose record on pro-life issues is at odds with Church teaching.
…which seems unlikely right now.
The post of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See has been vacant since Jan. 19, when Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon left the position. Commentators say that unless an appointment is made by mid-April, the Obama administration could face the embarrassing possibility of having no ambassador in place when the president visits Italy in July for the G8 summit. That would make any encounter between Pope Benedict XVI and President Obama not impossible but unlikely.
That would be a shame, all the way around. Especially given all the controversial decisions Obama has already made since taking office, on life issues and the threat to conscience protections of health care workers.
To help clear up some of these disagreements, a meeting between the Pope and the President is seen by some as a matter of urgency, particularly in view of Obama’s campaign pledge to build consensus between both sides of the pro-life debate. Failure to do so will confirm what some Vatican officials already suspect of Obama: that his talk of reaching out to all sides was empty talk, designed to deceive.
Send Mary Ann Glendon back, maybe?
0 Comment
You mean that Doug Kmiec is not sufficiently pro-life? Ray Flynn was Clinton’s ambassador to the Vatican, maybe he would be approved seeing that he was ok under JP2. We do not know who these candidates are or their qualifications. I suspect a little hanky panky in the Vatican office to either embarrass the administration or thwart a meeting with the Pope (gee, my cynical side is showing). maybe its the same group that casually forgot to tell the Pope about Bishop Williamson’s holocaust views. Funny ain’t it? The Vatican knows the pro-life views of every Democrat in America, but not the views of Bishop Williamson of the SSPX. As the old C+C Music Factory song goes, “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm.”
The Catholic Church in America is in crisis due to lack of support and unification on the pro-life issue. The Vatican is not going to agree on any candidate who does not understand that to be pro-life means to work to change hearts as well as public policy, so that life may be consistently protected from conception to natural death.
With all due respect sir, I have read some of your comments and I’m curious, with all this cynicism why do you attempt to argue from the Catholic perspective? And why are you still Catholic?
Given the manner in which the Obamas have dealt with protocol issues and heads of state recently, it is not surprising that the administration cannot get its arms around what an acceptable ambassador would have as qualifications. And oh yes, given the cynical campaign our president conducted, does anyone really believe it’s not all politics?