GOP slams plan to move Vatican embassy

Several GOP lawmakers are urging the Obama administration to reconsider its plans to shutter America’s Vatican embassy and move it into the larger U.S. Embassy in Italy.

The move, which is expected to take place in late 2014 or early 2015, is being touted as a way to save money and better ensure the security of U.S. diplomats, particularly after last year’s deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. The Vatican isn’t opposing the move, but it has raised hackles among some lawmakers and several former U.S. envoys to the Holy See.

Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), a Catholic, called it a “slap in the face” to America’s 78 million Catholics — particularly in the wake of the health law’s controversial mandate that employers cover birth control.

{mosads}“The current Administration demonstrates time and time again an anti-Catholic bias starting with Obamacare, and this is just another example,” Grimm said in a statement. “Closing this embassy completely undermines our relationship with the Vatican and is an insult to Catholics throughout the United States. As a proud, practicing Catholic, I am deeply offended by the Administration’s announcement and urge them to reconsider this deplorable move.”

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), a Greek Orthodox and leading congressional champion of religious freedom, also urged the administration to reconsider.

“The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See is an important diplomatic mission between the United States and the Vatican, which represents more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide,”  Bilirakis said in a statement Wednesday. “While diplomatic security is of the utmost importance, I urge the State Department to examine every effort to keep the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See in its own, distinct property.”

The new embassy would be housed in a distinct building from the embassy to Italy and have its own entrance. 

“We reject any suggestion that this decision, made for security and administrative reasons, constitutes a downgrading of our relations with the Holy See,” a State Department official told The Hill in an email. “The United States continues to regard the Holy See as a key bilateral partner in promoting religious freedom, protecting religious minorities, advancing humanitarian causes, and mitigating conflicts around the world.”

Nevertheless, five former U.S. envoys who served under Presidents Bush and Clinton are objecting, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

“It’s turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy,” ex-Ambassador James Nicholson, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the Reporter. “The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and to shoehorn [the U.S. delegation] into an office annex inside another embassy is an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican.”

President Obama’s current ambassador, Ken Hackett, disagreed.

“I see no diminishing in the importance of the relationship at all,” he told the Reporter. “The relationship between the Vatican and the U.S. government hasn’t been better than it is right now in quite a while.” 

The Reporter also quoted an anonymous Vatican official as saying the consolidation would be acceptable as long as the new embassy to the Vatican remains “completely separate” from the U.S. Embassy to Italy.

“Our Embassy to the Holy See will continue to operate as an independent mission,” the State Department official said, “and our diplomatic presence will remain one of the largest missions accredited to the Holy See.”