The new “controversy”:
One of the clever things about the Catholic church has been it’s ablity to maintain its status as a political force and a tiny state, and have some effect as a kind of diplomatic go-between and agenda setter.Think of the Vatican as the internationl equivalent of D.C. “Congresswoman” Eleanor Holmes Norton, say. The U.S. has an ambassador there, always a Roman Catholic, which as an aside seems to present a conflict of interests, and now people are musing about who Obama will appoint to the position.
Doug Kmiec, the Catholic conservative who supported Obama and made various pro-life arguments in favor of him during the campaign, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the role. I imagine Kmiec would be a fine Ambassador, though we have no idea if he’d be picked for the slot or if he is really interested in moving to Italy — excuse me, the Vatican State — for a few years. But conservative Catholics believe this would be an insult to the Pope, since though Kmiec is pro-life, he supports pro-choice Obama because he believes the president-elect will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and thus abortions through progressive social policies.
Why exactly do we have an ambassador to the Vatican and what does he/she do? And I don’t mean that snidely, as if to assert they do nothing, because I simply do not know what sort of things the Vatican and the US government take part in, as for all I know they could work on a number of issues, such as global hunger, etc. And honestly, doesn’t the Catholic Church have more to lose by rejecting an openly pro-life Roman Catholic ambassador than Kmiec and Obama do? Didn’t Catholics vote for Obama in large numbers, anyway?
Alex Higgins
"Didn’t Catholics vote for Obama in large numbers, anyway?"
Yes, we did! Or in my case via my sister, who has US citizenship.
The Catholic vote is something of a misnomer – it splits along ethnic lines (Irish, Italian, Polish, Hispanic) and class anyway.
But a majority of Catholic voters went Democratic for the first time in a decade.
Shygetz
So in other words, Obama must pick someone for the post that is against him and his policies or he risks insulting the Holy See. Well if this is true (and, of course, it isn’t), tough cookies for the Holy See.
Keith
Simple answer to the first part is that the Vatican is a country with whom we are on good terms, hence the ambassador.
Joshua Norton
As I recall, the Ambassador from France is gay and the pope won’t receive him. If the Vatican is supposed to be a foreign country, isn’t it borderline treason to let the head of that country try to dictate our laws, or tell a Catholic in this country how they should vote or who they should support if they don’t want to go to hell?
mcd
The Holy See is rich. That’s why we have an ambassador.
Zifnab
Translation: Conservatives find fault with Obama for holding political and social positions that are not conservative.
Expect these same conservatives to complain that his ambassador to Israel is probably an anti-Semite because he doesn’t agree with Bill Kristol, and his appointee to the Department of Education is terrible because said appointee isn’t a big enough champion of vouchers and private schooling.
This is a controversy because Obama is doing too good a job to find anything more controversial to talk about. See: Clintons, Soxgate.
jenniebee
Yes we did! Even though, actually, I’m a lapsed Catholic. The conservative Catholics make so much noise that it’s easy to forget that there are a lot of us raised on folk mass and "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." But we are still kicking around.
I’m sure that the US Ambassador to the Vatican attends mass regularly, gives the Prez advance alerts of any major Catholic pronouncements, communicates the political impact of teh buttsecks scandals, listens patiently to the Pope’s private secretary for butting into politics, and plays a lot of Tetris. Personally, I think it would be aces for Obama to appoint an Hispanic ambassador to the Vatican, but I’m sure Mr. Kmeic will be able to talk about teh buttsecks just fine.
sparky
can’t we send these people to remedial pundit school? graduates would be required to write on a topic that actually mattered to the common folk rather than aimless, dimwitted political thumb-suckery.
protected static
What Keith said. We have ambassadors to Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco and Montenegro – why not the Vatican as well?
gocart mozart
So "conservative Catholics" think Obama should not only appoint someone who bis "pro life" but also someone who believes he is pro "baby killer", and isn’t this an insult to the new president?
Why is there an ambassador to the Vatican? Technically it is an independent country albeit the smallest country in the world. I suppose its ambassador does the same thing as the ambassador to Fiji.
Jeff
How many ambassadors to Israel have been Jewish? Obama should appointa Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or some other non-Christian to ambassador of Vatican City.
Brachiator
Wikipedia explains it all for you:
It makes sense that countries would have an ambassador to a sovereign state.
Also, for some reason, the Church is taking a hard "pro life stand," with one official demanding that Catholics who voted for Obama "confess" their sins.
As an innocent bystander to all this, I am not sure how a person could still be a citizen of the United States and either vote in strict conformity to Catholic doctrine or run for federal office and place an allegiance to the Church above an allegiance to either the voters or to the Constitution. So I am totally puzzled as to why the Catholic Church is determined to try to push a policy that not only conflicts with modernity and common sense, but which is not even remotely enforceable, and which could cause voters to reject any Catholic candidate for federal office who openly declared total obedience to Rome.
And of course, then there is the Catholic Church’s despicable record with respect to pedophile priests. It takes a lot of nerve to try to get on a moral high horse when you are still wallowing deep in the gutter.
Punchy
Saw on the local newz yesterday that some RC priest (I’m thinking in Cali, but not sho) wrote a letter to his congregation saying that anyone in his church who voted for Obama would have to go to confession (i.e., confess their sins), with the implication that voting for Obama was a sinful act.
Don’t have any links nor time to find them, but that’s about the dickest Dick Move as I’ve seen from the RC Church in……well…..hours.
Napoleon
My idea exactly. Make it a Jewish person and if the Vatican complains point out that Jesus was Jewish.
Shalimar
But conservative Catholics believe this would be an insult to the Pope, since though Kmiec is pro-life, he supports pro-choice Obama
So conservative Catholics want Obama to support an ambassador who doesn’t support him? As others have said, how stupid would that be? It makes no sense, they should be happy that there is a pro-life Catholic candidate for the job considering the alternatives.
Shygetz
@Joshua Norton: Oh, it’s better than that. The SECOND nominated French ambassodaor was gay; the first one was a divorced Catholic, and the Vatican refused to accept him. The current ambassador is a once-married hetero (although I wish France had sent a Jewish transvestite in a polyamorous relationship).
Catsy
Kinda with Shy and Joshua here. While I don’t think it’s smart diplomacy to openly antagonize another country by appointing someone likely to give insult, I grow weary of the degree of kowtowing and concession that modern, industrial countries with no state religion are expected to give towards the irrational medievalism that forms the underpinnings of /any/ country that allows their religion to drive matters of law and state. Where do we draw the line?
This isn’t about Catholocism, although the Vatican is definitely high on the list of places that arrogantly expect everyone else to heel to their sensibilities, but not the other way around. This goes equally for the Islamic countries that get their panties in a wad whenever anyone suggests they might want to treat their women a little better, and who cry about respect for their religion whenever anyone opines that said treatment of women makes them complete assholes.
The idea that a pro-life Catholic might be unacceptable as an ambassador to the Vatican simply because he /supported the election of the president appointing him/ is so profoundly silly that the fact that we’re discussing it at all is a little embarrassing. And frankly, for all this talk of it being an insult to the Pope, if he rejects Kmiec for this reason, that in itself is such an insult to Obama that the only just response to the demand would be to laugh in his face, tell him to get a thicker skin, and suggest he grow the fuck up before trying to have another conversation with adults.
Yeah, I know, not going to happen, and Obama’s political sensibilities are a lot better than mine. But Pope Rat is a real piece of shit who seems to be working hard to set back the cause of bringing Catholocism into the 19th century, and it’d be nice to see someone put their foot down on this kind of irrational silliness.
Svensker
Shouldn’t anyone who voted for Bush have to confess, since he has waged unjust war (in the Catholic/Christian sense)?
I’ve never got the moral distinction these folks make — OK to kill born persons, an unbelievable sin to kill a fetus.
TomK
Obama should appoint a person who prosecutes child molesters to the Vatican.
Note: TomK is proud to be offensively anti catholic. I suffered through Sunday school and religious parents. In my experience roman Catholicism is emotional child abuse, and I could give a fuck what some old sadistic queens in drag think about me calling them out on it. Remember, those cannibal blood cultists would of burned me at the stake.
Tips for dealing with Catholics: 1.). "remove the plank from your own eye.". 2.) 10 billion for clean water for the planet. Why doesn’t the church follow christs example and bring water to the world instead of using mobbed up bankers to hide Nazi gold? 3.). Did you know the roman catholic church invented propaganda when a moneycounter realized convincing people was a better business decision then holy wars? Fuck the church, we don’t need there witch hunters or exorcists or tired irrelevant endorsements of the wealthy disguised as morality for the poor.
NonyNony
@Brachiator:
You’ve just described most of the interaction between the Vatican and the laity. It all makes much more sense when you take a step back and realize that the Catholic Church is essentially still a feudal organization. It’s organized as a feudal system. The "peasants" (e.g. the laity) are supposed to just shut up and do what the "lords" tell them to. And lesser lords are supposed to shut up and do what their superiors tell them to. And so on. They aren’t modern. They don’t want to BE modern. They want the rest of the world to come back to the right and true model of the world where the Vatican says "jump" and the rest of the world knows that if it doesn’t, then it commits a mortal sin and goes to hell.
There were nods towards letting the peasants voice opinions back in the 50s and 60s when there was a big push towards "modernization" of the Church, but even those small steps were pushed backwards by John Paul II and Benedict appears to want to push back even more.
Of course the American bishops aren’t all of one mind about the whole "can’t vote for a Democrat" thing. The official statement was something along the lines of "you can’t vote for a pro-choice candidate if that’s the reason you’re voting for him or her. But if you’re voting for them for some reason other than reproductive choice, that’s fine and not a sin." Some local priests (like the ones cited above) have made statements on their own, but the bishops have pretty much been smacking them around and telling them to STFU lest they endanger their diocese’s precious, precious tax exempt status.
Keith
And let’s not forget support of the death penalty, something else the Catholic Church opposes. This is one of the reasons why politics and religion tend not to mix well together.
Zifnab
So the Balloon Juice nominee to the Vatican must be a pro-choice Hispanic Jewish ex-state attorney in charge of prosecuting child molestation.
If you wanted to really mess with the conservative Catholics, we could just have Obama send an Evangelical Southern Baptist. I would buy popcorn.
malraux
@protected static:
According to that page, we do not have an ambassador to monaco, and the ambassador to Liechtenstein is really the ambassador to Switzerland. In practical terms, there’s no reason the ambassador to Rome can’t also cover the Vatican.
Dennis - SGMM
An OT too good not to share:
Murkowski to Palin: Leave my seat alone
Comrade Kevin
@Zifnab:
I think he should find a way of appointing Ian Paisley to the post.
Dennis - SGMM
@Zifnab:
Rudy Giuliani. They could trade fashion tips.
serge
As a Catholic I have no problem with a pitchfork and torch approach to the Vatican. Let’s invade! They’re out of touch, they would dominate an incredible number of the planet’s population, and I just don’t care what they think anymore. (I haven’t for a long time, actually.) I suspect I’m not alone.
I’ve now been told by a moronic priest here in SC, and another in California, that I should be denied sacraments as punishment for voting for Obama. That should be a new definition of insanity. Einstein might have appreciated it.
AJM
To be fair, the position of one priest isn’t really reflective of the larger organization. He’s speaking his own opinion, not acting as an official. They have a lot of leeway to do that sort of thing, you’ll find plenty of parishes that want nothing to do with that sort of talk.
Calouste
@protected static:
Nope, there are no ambassadors to some of those countries separately. Ambassadors to other countries (Spain in the case of Andorra, Switzerland in the case of Liechtenstein, Italy in the case of San Marino), are accredited to the minor country as well, but the embassy is in the larger country, and the smaller country doesn’t even have a consulate. The United States actually does not have an ambassador to Monaco, surprisingly enough, not even shared with France.
The Holy See is different because there is an ambassador solely for the Holy See, even with their own embassy (which is in Italy btw and not in Vatican City, there being not much space in Vatican City. )
The U.S. didn’t have an ambassador with the Holy See until St. Ronnie of the Rayguns established diplomatic relations in 1984.
Balconesfault
It is time to finally start pushing back against right-wing presumptions about the "correct" way to do things … be they deliberately accomodating the Pontiff’s dogma rather than rewarding a political supporter (isn’t that the purpose of most Ambassadorships?), be they kowtowing once more to demands that the war on drugs keep being prosecuted in the same failure ridden and destructive way it’s been prosecuted for three decades (we’re looking at YOU, Bill Clinton!), be they paying lip service to right wing anti-government fetishists. I already see Obama rejecting the latter … and I’m hopeful that we finally start getting smart about the second … and maybe it’s time that we start talking about religion as something that’s important to a lot of people – rather than something that’s important to us as a nation?
Obama skipping the manditory show of going to Church and instead hitting the gym on a regular basis IS the kind of change we can believe in!
John
The U.S. didn’t have an ambassador with the Holy See until St. Ronnie of the Rayguns established diplomatic relations in 1984.
Huh, I didn’t realize that. We apparently had a chargé d’affaires there during WWII, but that’s a pretty different situation. Truman also apparently appointed an ambassador who was not confirmed by the Senate, but that’s it.
I think I agree that we should just have one ambassador accredited to both Italy and the Holy See.
Comrade Darkness
The Catholic minions bestowing their votes means zilch to Church HQ. As an ex-Catholic I don’t have much positive to say about the Vatican, but I have taken great amusement in watching our ambassador there get hauled into an audience on a regular basis and berated for Bush’s very unChristian actions around the globe.
The Church is like China. Very big and very patient. They’ve learned that they can outlast their enemies by centuries. It’s a wash, really, Obama vs. Bush. Fewer wars and more help for the poor balances out on great Anubis’s scales. Oh, wait, wrong theologically driven dictatorship. I get them confused some times.
Oh, and Serge… that attitude automatically, and without appeal, renders you not Catholic.
Silver
Why do we care what a group of people who protect child molesters to safeguard their own prestige think?
Of course, the hard anti-abortion and anti-contraception stance makes a perverse sort of sense…less kids being born simply means less kids to fuck.
rob
Svensker, I agree completely. I don’t understand how they can’t see the contradiction.
serge
Comrade Darkness, you are absolutely correct. The Church might still consider me a member, although apostate. I did spend six years in the clutches of the Sisters of Show-No-Mercy (not fun, but I did learn to read and have good penmanship), then six glorious years at an English Benedictine abbey school (enough Latin, Greek and French to choke a mule), then several more years at a Jesuit institution (I’m still in therapy).
I do know from Catholic, but your point is well made.
Calouste
Just checking around a bit and the United Kingdom didn’t have an ambassador to the Holy See until 1982, although they had lower level diplomatic representations since 1914, after a short break in relations following Henry VIII’s decision that he wanted a divorce.
Maybe John Paul II worked on getting more diplomatic recognition and Thatcher and Reagan were willing to help him as they saw him as an ally in the fight against those evil commies?
(Australia btw has an ambassador who does both the Holy See and … Ireland?)
Keith
I’d recommend writing a letter to (or requesting an audience with) said priests’ bishops. The Church hierarchical in ways that evangelical churches are not such that it’s pretty difficult to have a Father Hagee-type character who becomes larger than life & makes up his own doctrine. If a priest starts to veer in that direction, the bishop is there to put the priest in line with the doctrine of the Church.
srv
What NonyNony said. Most US Catholics are really Episcopalians who are sending checks to the wrong church. At least that’s what the Vatican thinks.
Re why have these types of connections? Well, back in the day, the best world-wide intelligence outfit was the Jesuits. It’s no mistake certain agencies and State are filled with folks from Georgetown, Loyola, etc.
For all the heaps wingnuts want to give Reagan for winning the Cold War (and he does deserve some credit for ignoring same said wingnuts and engaging Gorbachev), the Polish Pope was kicking in doors on the western frontier. Recently the CIA took credit for a lot of that, but they were really more along for the ride.
Today, one could surmise we have common interests in Cuba, Venezuela and a few other states.
smiley
I nominate Joe Lieberman. Holy Joe is sanctimonious enough that he might consider it. Plus, if he took it, he’d be out of the senate and would be replaced with a real democrat.
Lihtox
@Svensker: Technically speaking, I think it’s the numbers of abortions (millions a year, I think it is) that are the real problem, along with the nonchalance with which we treat it (entirely appropriately, in my opinion), that bothers them the most.
Lihtox
@TomK: Bigots always have what seems to them like a reasonable excuse.
cleek
Fuck the Vatican.
there, i said it.
also: there is no Pope.
Bubblegum Tate
I heartily endorse this event or product!
As for the whole deal about Catholics supporting the Iraq war…I’ve pressed several wingnut Catholics about this, and they all have the same dodge: When the Pope spoke against the war, he was not issuing an encyclical. He was just, you know, talking. If he had issued an encyclical stating that viewpoint, then Catholics would be required to abide by it. But he didn’t, and as such, he was not God’s Infallible Messenger on Earth, he was just some dude with a funny hat talking some peace-and-love mamajahambo. So…Jebus save the fetuses and smite the swarthy heathens!
p.a.
Whadda ya mean ‘borderline’? Speaking as an ex-Catholic,
it is treason; and it’s instructive that the only ones
threatened with church sanction are pro-choice. Nobody
getting tossed who won’t support the social safety net.
I believe the Bush admin., the RCC and conservative Muslim countries (a redundancy?) join together in efforts, especially in the UN, to kill any woman’s health initiatives that include choice/abortion. An on-site ambassador facilitates that.
Although I am pro-choice,for a chance to live in Italy I will throw my hat into the ring. My forebears are 100% Italian back to 4 generations, and I speak enough to get my face slapped or my ass kicked. And I know something about the history of the Risorgimento, although the Vatican may not see that as a positive!
Bob In Pacifica
We used to have political relations with the Vatican after WWII to get Nazis, fascists and their sympathizers out of Europe and on to Latin America and South Africa. (Google "ratlines".)
Then there was the Vatican banking scandal in the 70s.
Not sure what the reason is now.
Punchy
And here I thought the Bishop’s job was to kill the rooks and knights. Idiot I am.
Librarian
Another thing I would love to see happen is that Obama appoints a woman as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, then when the Saudis object, he tells them to go suck it. I can dream, can I?
Jeff
@Librarian: That would be all kinds of Schadenfreude, although they tend to treat businesswoman from the west with some respect.
mltobin37
I nominate Cap’n Ed!
Zuzu's Petals
@TomK:
Love the dress, but your purse is on fire. – Quentin Crisp
protected static
@Calouste (et. al.):
Actually, the US Ambassador to France does do double-duty for Monaco as well.
Wikipedia, wrong? Perish the thought… :-)
Ok, so ambassadors are credentialed to serve more than one country, but the point remains: we have them officially designated as US Ambassador to [really, really small place].
protected static
Interestingly (to this former International Relations geek, anyway), are how many ‘Chiefs of Mission’ we maintain with non-state entities. Sure, NATO and the UN I knew, but I had no idea that we actually had an Ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Original Lee
Kinda OT, but we now get more vacation time thanks to Carabou Barbie! Hurray!
MM
Actually, the ambassadors to the Vatican are not accredited to the Vatican City State. They are accredited to the Holy See. They are ambassadors to the pope, not to the piece of territory that has been an independent state since 1929.
npr
I hope the ambassador will dictate the Pope’s terms of surrender in the war on Xmas.
joel
Take your OED, Meriam-Webster’s, or what have you, and look up the word sinecure.
Or I guess this is the 21st Century so you could just wiki-google it. (Or I could link to it, but I’m lazy.)
Jon H
Zifnab wrote: "If you wanted to really mess with the conservative Catholics, we could just have Obama send an Evangelical Southern Baptis"
ie, John Hagee.
rich
54% of Catholics voted for Obama.
The Catholic Church needs to come around to our way of thinking.
jenniebee
I’ll see your Southern Baptist, and I’ll raise you a Pentacostalist with a degree from Bob Jones U. And a box of Milk Duds. Also.
JGabriel
Why is it that conservative Catholics always forget that the Pope is against war and the death penalty too?
.
thomas
as an RC (recovering catlic) with 18+ years of catholic ed – gs, hs, ba, ma – i can assure you that conservative catholics, this iscudes almost all bishops +, suffer from severe cranial rectal inversion and when they finally pop their heads out their eyes will be so coated with shit they still wont see what’s going on.
Anyone who listens to these misogynists bellowing from the 16th century belongs in the 16th entury.
thomas
Oh, and i forgot to add
Apparently Austria is taking advice from my sainted Irish mother who never saw the difference between Vat City and Dublin
Tejas Geek
I see you both and raise you Tony Alamo. And a cup of Ghirardelli white mocha, generously spiked with whisky.
AnneLaurie
It’s true that if the Pope lived in Peru or the Congo, there’d be a *lot* less competition for that ambassadorial post. And rewarding big political donors has been a key part of the ambassadorial procedure since there have been beautiful U.S. embassies in the nicest parts of the nicest cities of the world. The Global Village Idiots want to be sure that "our", meaning "their", guy in Rome has the skillz to throw really tasteful parties, with the right guest lists & the best commestibles. All the ideology stuff is window dressing, a sop for the peasants in the Heartland(tm) who don’t understand the Serious Issues motivating those fortunate enough to treat global politics as just another seasonal sporting event, a little rough-edged entertainment between grouse shooting and skiing.
Josh Hueco
I nominate Hutton Gibson.
TomK
@lihtoc
It took me years to get catholic dogma out of my worldview. Telling kids they are going to he’ll for sexual thoughts when we know everyone has them is child abuse. If you educate your kids in the catholic system, you are most likely subjecting them to emotional abuse. Mever mind the thinly vieled psychosexual drama of mass itself. Do you like the way the church fucks up kids emotional development?
Fuck you too calling me a bigot for standing up to child abusing hypocrites who are either insane (thinking god talks to them) or lying. I’m bigoted towards any group that abuses huge numbers of kids and burned anyone who disagrees with them at the stake as long as they could get away with it.
If you want to know God, eat psychedelic mushrooms in nature, like god intended. You don’t need a child abusing closet case in a dress with barbed wire wrapped around his thigh as an intermediary. There is a living god who will talk directly with you, and not even demand alone time with your preteen boys.
Just Some Fuckhead
File this one under who fucking cares.
SlothropRedux
During the Clinton administration, Ray Flynn – the generally progressive, but exceptionally Catholic and pro-life mayor of Boston – was tapped to be the ambassador to the Vatican. He was beside himself with joy and left his job as elected representative without a second thought. At the time I thought this was one of the weirdest things I had ever seen. A grown man acting like a giddy altar boy. Blech.
Downpuppy
Ray Flynn is available. He did a great job under Clinton – held the umbrella steady while nearly drinking Rome dry.
CalD
I nominate Andrew Sullivan.
r€nato
ciao p.a., da dove vengono i tuoi parenti?
KS in MA
I nominate Sarah Palin.
e_majorana
If you wanted to really mess with the conservative Catholics, we could just have Obama send an Evangelical Southern Baptist. I would buy popcorn.
Not really. The evangelicals and Catholic hierachy are in lock step when it comes to pro-life issues.
Steve The Other Plumber
I hope the Catholic church understands and realizes how these things play in peoria.
If they’re looking for a backlash, keep pushing.
me
"Obama skipping the manditory show of going to Church and instead hitting the gym on a regular basis IS the kind of change we can believe in!"
No change. Bush did the same thing, pretty much. Remember, he was only talked up by the fundies. He didn’t give a shit about them or their silly religion; just a little red meat now and then. This has become so painfully obvious that their leaders hardly bother to deny it anymore. Of course it’ll all get rewritten a few years down the road and Bush will either be an aberration or the real cause will be Obama or Clinton. The wingnuts are already working on their revisionist shit sandwiches for the pundits to eat up. UM UM UM conventional wisdom. The GOP convention, that is.