Pope Francis Won’t Veto Trump’s Vatican Ambassador Pick, Even Though He Probably Wants To
Church officials have confirmed that Pope Francis will likely not veto President Trump’s pick of the next ambassador to the Vatican, despite having misgivings about the appointee’s frequently harsh criticism of their perceived progressive agenda.
Last month, Trump appointed Brian Burch to the ambassador position, citing his exceptional leadership skills and aid in getting him elected.
Burch, who is a devout Roman Catholic and the President of Catholic Vote, has long been critical of elements of Francis’s papacy and governance, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ issues.
He previously blasted Francis for his 2023 decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples, accusing him of sowing “massive confusion” within the Catholic church, and suggested that this confusion was possibly intentional. He reiterated that once Francis leaves, the new pope must clarify all the uncertainties that the liberal Francis brought into the church.
According to Reuters: “The two Vatican officials, speaking to Reuters on background on a matter still under discussion, said Francis, who may need to appoint a new Vatican ambassador to the U.S. during Trump’s four-year term, wanted to avoid a diplomatic scuffle and was not planning to veto the appointment.”
Notably, earlier this month, Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy to become the archbishop of Washington, D.C, despite McElroy advocating “radical inclusion” of LGBTQ church members into the church as well as being harsh of TRump’s immigration policies, calling the president’s mass deportation plan an “act of injustice which would stain our national honor” and saying that his plan to end DACA lacked any “shred of humanity.”
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