Posted on 04/10/2015 9:24:40 PM PDT by Steelfish
Vatican, France In Showdown Over Gay Ambassador
Vatican City (AFP) - Three months after appointing an openly gay diplomat as France's ambassador to the Vatican, Paris is still waiting for the green light from Rome.
With Pope Francis entering his third year in the post, some activists see the Vatican's silence as a test of the depth of reform in the Catholic Church.
While the Vatican usually declares it has accepted a candidate around a month after an appointment is made, it makes no public statements at all if the answer is no.
Paris appears determined to stick with seasoned candidate Laurent Stefanini, a 55-year-old practising Catholic whom the foreign ministry described as "one of our best diplomats".
"That's why we appointed him. We are waiting for a reply to our request," it said.
Sources close to President Francois Hollande said his appointment was "the wish of the president" and the cabinet of ministers.
The French cabinet approved Stefanini's appointment on January 5 but has not yet received a reply.
"A delay of three months like this is not normal," a well-informed source in Rome told AFP.
"The reply normally doesn't take more than a month, a month and a half," this source added.
In 2007, France proposed openly gay diplomat Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge to be its ambassador at the Vatican. Paris never received a reply, and it eventually put forward another nominee.
But unlike Kuhn-Delforge, Stefanini is single and is very discreet about his personal life. Italian daily Il Messagero described him as "a practising Catholic, very cultivated, of absolute discretion".
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I expect Obama’s jealous Hollande did this first. I hope the Pope doesn’t do a Pence on us.
Is he a practicing homosexual?
In Catholicism, it is deeds, not temptations, that count.
of course, many gay priests lied about it. So is this guy discrete or celibate?
>> a test of the depth of reform in the Catholic Church.
Reform? Jeez... Resurrecting the practice of sodomy as an acceptable behavior is hardly reform — it’s degeneration.
Sexual deviancy in your face. Sick bastards.
LOL! :)
“Sexual deviancy in your face. Sick bastards.”
I think they are simply testing the Popes’ new perceived attitudes toward gays.
How do diplomatic appointments work? It sounds as though that if the Vatican does not accept the appointment, it is up to France to withdraw the appointment. Has any country ever rejected another country’s ambassador, or are they all just “pocket vetoes” like the 2007 appointment?
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