US Ambassador To Vatican Supports The President

Shocking, I know. Everyone's talking about it.

[Michael Paulson] The White House tonight announced that President Obama is nominating Miguel H. Díaz (right), a Catholic theologian from Minnesota, as ambassador to the Holy See.

[Mark Silk] For starters, with Sotomayor this makes for a serious one-two punch with Latinos. It's very interesting that he's a theologian rather than your basic Catholic pol or lawyer type. He served on Obama's Catholic Advisory Board during the campaign, which puts him firmly in the Kmiec camp. This strikes me as the shrewdest of moves, and one that will cause no end of teeth-grinding on the Catholic right, including the likes of Archbishop Burke. But we await learned commentary from his co-religionists.

Update: Turns out Diaz is a consultant to Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. Big win for social-justice, common-ground Catholics.

It doesn't really matter what Conservatives think, Obama was going to tap someone who was a) Catholic and b) a big Obama supporter. Hence you get someone who is a consultant to Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and was on Obama's Catholic Advisory Board.

Easy math.

Ambassadorships are rewards for faithful supporters of political figures; everybody knows that. Hopefully the guy appointed to the task has some affinity/interest to the area that he is appointed to, since he's in country to smooth the way for US interests and needs to draw on that connection to help him do that.

So yeah, it'd be nice if the US Ambassador to the Vatican was 100% in line with Church teaching and so and so forth, but he's not the Vatican's Ambassador, he's the President's. Things act accordingly to their nature.