The tricky politics of picking the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican

The Obama administration’s search to fill the vacant diplomatic post has created a level of scrutiny in Washington unmatched since the very prospect of relations with the Vatican stirred American fears of papal loyalists swearing allegiance to church over country. Since full diplomatic relations were finally established in 1984, all eight American ambassadors to the Holy See have been anti-abortion Catholics. The noticeably lengthy search for the next one, observers say, raises the possibility that he or she may for the first time lack at least one of those attributes.

Washington Post