Another pro-choicer rejected for Vatican ambassadorship.

I am curious about how many times this administration plans to insult the Roman Catholic Church:

Vatican blocks Caroline Kennedy appointment as US ambassador

The Vatican has blocked the appointment of Caroline Kennedy as US ambassador, according to reports.

Vatican sources told Il Giornale that their support for abortion disqualified Ms Kennedy and other Roman Catholics President Barack Obama had been seeking to appoint.

You would think that after the Vatican made it so clear that Kmiec was unacceptable that he never even made it on the list the White House would take the hint and find a pro-life Democratic Catholic for the job; apparently not. You would also think that this language was clear:

“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,” the official said.

“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.”

The official said that the debate around the chances of Prof. Kmiec to become Vatican Ambassador “is closed.” “He nailed the last nail in the coffin with his latest “disappointing position on embryonic stem cell research.”

Like it or not – and I’m thinking that the Obama administration is in the ‘not’ list – the Vatican is a real and recognized nation-state, for all that its physical borders are inside the city of Rome. The White House needs to start taking this situation seriously, and stop treating it as an opportunity to play domestic politics. Catholic Democrats likewise have to face the fact that the head of their ostensible religion makes a fundamental distinction between disagreement with the Church on abortion, and disagreement with the Church on, say, capital punishment or war – and that the Pope doesn’t want American Catholics to be comfortable about the fact that they’re pro-choice while the Church is pro-life.

It’s not as if this is a difficult realization to make, after all. I’m as bad a Catholic as just about anybody else out there, and I worked this all out years ago.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

7 thoughts on “Another pro-choicer rejected for Vatican ambassadorship.”

  1. About time the “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but…” Cathoics were held accountable.

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