Obama Picks Hispanic to be
Ambassador to Vatican
PHOENIX (By
Amy Sullivan, Time
)
June 4, 2009
— Barack Obama has an uncanny
ability to disarm critics,
especially those itching for a
fight, and it was on full display
this past week. His choice of
federal judge Sonia Sotomayor as a
Supreme Court nominee, of course,
got all the attention. But another
key appointment of a Hispanic with
top-notch credentials and a
compelling personal story also
showed just how good the President
is at keeping his opponents off
balance. In fact, in selecting
Catholic scholar Miguel Diaz to be
the new ambassador to the Holy See,
Obama not only neutralized potential
controversy, but also highlighted a
potential weakness of the U.S.
Catholic Church these days.
If confirmed, the Cuban-American
Diaz would be the first theologian
to hold the diplomatic post, and he
would become one of the country's
most influential Hispanic Catholics.
The choice is a shrewd one for a
White House that has been under fire
from leading conservative Catholics
in the first few months of the
Administration. What could have been
an ugly confirmation battle may well
proceed with all the rancor of a
first-communion party.
While the relationship between the
U.S. and the Vatican has become an
important one, the two have enjoyed
full diplomatic relations only since
1984. Over the past 25 years,
ambassadors to the Holy See have
either been Catholic politicians or
close personal friends of the
President who appointed them. Ronald
Reagan chose California businessman
William Wilson; Bill Clinton
selected former Boston mayor Ray
Flynn and former Congresswoman Lindy
Boggs; and George W. Bush's first
ambassador was former RNC chair Jim
Nicholson.
Nominating a Catholic politician to
the position would have been a risk
for Obama. His selection of Kansas
Governor Kathleen Sebelius to lead
the Department of Health and Humans
Services generated protests from
conservatives who questioned whether
a politician who supported abortion
rights could be a real Catholic.
A Catholic politician — even one
with pro-life views — would probably
have been subjected to a thorough review
of her record and asked to explain any
votes against abortion restrictions.
Instead, Diaz is a Catholic theologian
and professor at the College of St.
Benedict and St. John's University in
Minnesota. He is a board member of the
Catholic Theological Society of America
and a scholar of the German theologian
Karl Rahner, one of Pope Benedict's
mentors. Diaz, who happens to be
pro-life, served on the Obama campaign's
Catholic advisory group during the 2008
campaign. Like Sotomayor, he is the
child of immigrants and was the first
person in his family to attend college.
If Diaz's background as a theologian
insulates him from inquiries about an
abortion voting record, his Hispanic
identity puts potential critics in a
bind as well. The U.S. Catholic church
may be the one institution more worried
than the GOP about losing Hispanics.
One-third of U.S. Catholics are
Hispanic, and among younger Catholics,
the percentages are even larger. A full
60% of American Catholics under age 30
are Hispanic. Father Thomas Reese of the
Woodstock Theological Center recently
noted on the Washington Post's OnFaith
site studies show 1 out of 3 Catholics
has left the church over the course of
their lives. "The only reason Catholics
continue to be a stable percentage of
the U.S. population," he wrote, "is
Hispanics are making up for the white
Catholics who are leaving."
Even so, the U.S. Catholic Church has
been slow to respond to this new
reality. Only 9% of active Catholic
bishops in this country are Hispanic,
and just one of the 31 archbishops is a
Hispanic. Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
reported last year that only 6% of
Catholic clergy even speak Spanish.
There are exceptions — the new
Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan,
delivered part of his inaugural sermon
there in Spanish, and Los Angeles
Cardinal Roger Mahoney has been a strong
national voice in favor of immigration
reform.
But as in Central and South America, the
Catholic Church is steadily losing
Hispanic congregants to Evangelical
denominations. A 2007 Pew Forum on
Religion and Public Life survey found
half of Hispanic Catholics prefer
charismatic worship styles and
practices. In some cases, they are able
to find that in Catholic parishes. But
where they can't, they are turning to
Pentecostal and other Evangelical
traditions instead. Although 68% of
Hispanics in the U.S. are still
Catholics, that percentage has dropped
from 78% in the early 1970s.
The job of ambassador to the Holy See is
unusual — there are no visa issues to
deal with, no military actions to
observe and report. At a conference on
May 28 at Catholic University to discuss
the past 25 years of U.S.-Vatican
relations, former ambassador Nicholson
said one of his duties in the post was
preparing a quarterly memo to the State
Department outlining his best guess of
who would be elected as a successor if
the Pope died. Pope Benedict would
probably prefer to debate Rahner's
theological arguments with Diaz than to
speculate about his own demise. But he
will find in Diaz a representative of
the U.S. Catholic Church's future — and
an indication the new Administration not
only intends to take its relationship
with the Vatican seriously, but that it
won't make it easy for conservative
Catholics to attack it.
By nominating a Hispanic theologian,
Miguel Diaz, to become the US ambassador
to the Holy See. President Obama is
posing a serious challenge to the
Catholic Church. The President is trying
to woo Hispanic Catholics and thereby
pull them away from the influence of the
Catholic hierarchy while solidifying the
strength of the Democratic party among
Hispanic voters. In a crass example of
politicization of religion, the
American Catholic church may be the one
institution more worried than the GOP
about losing Hispanics. The assumption
is a Hispanic Catholic drawn into
Democratic party politics is lost to the
Church.
