An Obama Move to Split Off Hispanic Catholics?

From Catholic World News

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, according to a Time magazine analysis. The President is trying to woo Hispanic Catholics, the magazine suggests, 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, Time claims: "The American Catholic church may be the one institution more worried than the GOP about losing Hispanics." (Notice the assumption that a Hispanic Catholic drawn into the orbit of Democratic party politics is lost to the Church.)

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Obama's Vatican Pick: Boosting Hispanic Catholics (Time)

Obama Names Theology Professor, Campaign Donor as Holy See Ambassador

An associate professor will be the next US Ambassador to the Vatican -- I guess the graduate assistants were busy with more important matters. But being Cuban-American, he does complement the Sotomayor-Puerto Rican-American pick in Obama's identity politics/Hispanic strategy. Now he just needs to find a Mexican-American to head the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, and all the Latino bases will be covered.

From Catholic World News

President Barack Obama has nominated Miguel Diaz, associate professor of theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, as US ambassador to the Holy See. The author of On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives, Diaz is a board member of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

Diaz-- who supported the nomination of former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services, despite her record on abortion-- donated $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in September 2008.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Theology professor nominated to be U.S. ambassador to the Holy See (College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University)
• Hispanic theologian chosen for Vatican ambassador (AP)
• 26 prominent Catholics back Sebelius pick (National Catholic Reporter)
• Archbishop Naumann laments Sebelius appointment, warns of threat to Catholic hospitals (CWN, Mar 5)
• Federal Election Commission