Wednesday, April 15, 2009

On Ambassadors


There has been lots in the news about the Holy See turning down various candidates of the Obama administration as its ambassador, I thought this was an interesting snip, from an unidentified source in Am Spec.


The Holy See has always set a very simple standard: the person should not be in opposition to fundamental teachings of the Church that belong to our common shared humanity. He or she may not believe in Catholic dogma if he or she is not a Catholic, but we could not accept someone who is in favor of abortion, or (human) cloning or same-sex unions equated to marriage. That is a fairly simple principle that governments like, say, Spain and Cuba, or Mr. Clinton's administration, have been able to understand without a problem.

6 comments:

gemoftheocean said...

HaHa..wondered when someone on your side of the pond would pick up on this. It was with utter GLEE that I read that the Vatican's latest rejection was Caroline Kennedy [Schlossberg].

It would have been nice to add "You see, if such a "catholic" obviously-doesn't-give-a-damn "catholic" were to come to the pope for Communion, the pope would refuse them, and that's not going to read nice in the Roman Observer.... and no, we don't give a hoot what nobama thinks we should do. Unlike most US bishops, the pope actually has a set."

GSal said...

Being an American--I appreciate the values being upheld by the Holy See!!

nickbris said...

I suppose sending them to Pakistan could be a "bridge too far"

At the end of the day buying the puppy for the White House will probably be Obamas shrewdest move.

He should just concentrate on making friends with Iran & Cuba instead of winding up a billion Catholics.

gemoftheocean said...

Nick, with "Friends" like them who needs enemies? Actually, I hope the former finds out 0ero is an apostate Muslim.

GOR said...

In some circles it is being reported that two - if not three - candidates have been rejected by the Vatican. In addition to Caroline Kennedy, Professor Doug Kmiec (the fawning, pro-Obama bastion of Catholic ‘orthodoxy’) has been bruited, apparently.

It appears that Ted Kennedy’s gift of the White House puppy wasn’t enough to secure Caroline’s appointment. Maybe he should have sent a kitten to the Holy Father, instead…?

But then Teddy has been 'rubrically-challenged' on occasion…

David Lindsay said...

In the furore around the nomination of a new American Ambassador to the Holy See, whatever happened to Professor Douglas Kmiec?

When that traditional Catholic and conservative constitutional scholar endorsed Obama, he was widely held to have done so in search of this Ambassadorship.

And why not? Someone has to be the American Ambassador to the Holy See. Sooner him than, for example, Caroline Schlossberg.

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