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Kmiec As Vatican Ambassador Is No Insult

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 2, 2008 6:22 PM CST

(Newser) – Douglas Kmiec’s possible appointment by Barack Obama as ambassador to the Vatican shouldn’t raise any hackles and—pro-lifers' views to the contrary—would not be an insult to the church, Henry Farrell writes on Crooked Timber. “Kmiec continues to state his opposition to abortion,” Farrell writes. He supported pro-choice Obama for the express purpose of curbing abortions, because he considered the president-elect a better choice than McCain.

“Kmiec is a Catholic in perfectly good standing, no better or worse in the eyes of the church than those who adopt a more conservative position on these issues,” Farrell writes. Those pundits who see his stance as apostasy are blinkered, and he will be welcomed, if not embraced, by the Vatican if sent there. “I don’t see where the insult lies,” Farrell concludes.

[Images (4)]

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Douglas Kmiec. (Getty Images)

Pope Benedict XVI, right, welcomes Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaska. (AP Photo)

Pope Benedict XVI delivers the Angelus prayer from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican. (AP Photo)

Benedict XVI. (AP Photo)

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Kmiec’s appointment might not be politically well-judged. But that’s an entirely different question to that of whether Kmiec’s appointment would be an insult to the church - Henry Farrell

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