Even the most devout ultramontanist might wonder whether the papacy has the right to veto the US’s choice of ambassador to the Holy See, but reports that the Vatican has made clear its displeasure at all three of the President’s first choices — because they are pro-abortion Catholics — present Barack Obama with a headache. If he scrapes about for someone sufficiently “pro-life” and pro-Democrat he will be accused of ceding US diplomatic appointments to another power.
If he stands firm, his ambassador might be kept waiting in a cold, albeit impressively marbled, corridor.
The Vatican’s presumed rejection of Caroline Kennedy as ambassador is certainly historical irony.
When her grandfather, John F. Kennedy, stood for the presidency in 1960, he tried to reject claims that as a Catholic he would be bound to obey the Pope by making clear he opposed sending a US ambassador to the Holy See.
Indeed, the US survived for 200 years without an ambassador to the pontiff. True, between 1848 and 1868 it sent a diplomatic mission to the Pope, but only in recognition of his role as the temporal ruler of the Papal States, not for any spiritual claim he made on the State Department’s time.
Soon after the Papal States fell victim to Italian unification, Washington stopped sending emissaries to the Holy Father.
This official indifference played well with the strongly anti-Catholic sentiments of American “nativism”.
Constitutionalists focused on the technical issue that the papacy had never formally revoked its traditional claim to authority over civil rulers. Officially recognising the Pope supposedly risked endangering the Founding Fathers’ strict separation of church and state.
Periodically, Washington’s lack of proper accreditation in the Vatican caused problems. In December 1939 President Roosevelt believed that he and Pope Pius XII were the only two world leaders with sufficient clout to persuade Europe to halt its war.
However, rather than risk the condemnation of “Bible Christians” at home, Roosevelt dispatched only a “personal representative”, Myron C. Taylor, to the Vatican. It was made abundantly clear that Taylor was not an ambassador. Whatever his status, Europe carried on with its war regardless.
However, the mission had its uses and thus President Truman considered appointing the war hero General Mark Clark (like Taylor, a Protestant) to the full rank of ambassador in 1951. The outrage from Baptist congregations quietly scuppered that plan.
It was Ronald Reagan who finally ensured full diplomatic recognition by appointing the first ambassador in 1984.
In Pope John Paul II, the Republican Party had found an ally against communist rule in Eastern Europe and against abortion all over the world.
The legacy of Reagan’s action is such that even the Kennedy clan can be deemed insufficiently Catholic.
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(Source: TOUK)