Report: Vatican has rejected 3 Obama picks for ambassador

The Washington Times reports on Italian newspaper rumors (underlining mine):

The Vatican has quietly rejected at least three of President Obama's candidates to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See because they support abortion, and the White House might be running out of time to find an acceptable envoy before Mr. Obama travels to Rome in July, when he hopes to meet Pope Benedict XVI.

Italian journalist Massimo Franco, who broke the story about the White House attempts to find a suitable ambassador to the Vatican, said papal advisers told Mr. Obama's aides privately that the candidates failed to meet the Vatican's most basic qualification on the abortion issue.

... He said the Vatican recognized that a foreign nation is free to appoint the ambassador of its choice but that the pope is free to reject a proposed envoy if he believes the candidate would "fail to improve relations" with the Catholic city-state.

Mr. Franco, who has close connections at the Vatican, added that the rejection of the Obama candidates "would suggest that, at least so far, none of the potential Democratic diplomats were considered fit to 'improve relations' with the Holy See."

In tandem, Headline Bistro adds (underlining mine):

A longtime John Kerry supporter is about to land the prized position of U.S. ambassador to Italy, and Caroline Kennedy may join him nearby as ambassador to the Vatican, an Italian news magazine has claimed.

In an April 2 article in Panorama, journalist Carlo Rossella predicted that 60-year-old David Thorne, a donor to the Obama campaign and brother-in-law of former presidential candidate John Kerry, will be given the post, per the request of Kerry himself.

And in a report that will drop like a bombshell among Vatican watchers, Rosella also asserted that Caroline Kennedy – her own hopes to rise to the U.S. Senate dashed for now – has been suggested as the Obama administration’s ambassador to the Holy See.

It’s an ironic tangle of State Department, campaign and even marriage connections that only adds fuel to speculation over who will represent the United States in two of the State Department’s most high-profile posts.