Bush names Glendon as Vatican ambassador

WASHINGTON — President Bush has nominated Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor and prominent conservative commentator, as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Glendon, 69, is a longtime opponent of abortion and gay marriage and has written widely on culture and ethics in books and scholarly journals.

Her appointment must be confirmed by the Senate.

In 1994, Pope John Paul II named Glendon to the then-new Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a Vatican advisory panel. She headed a Vatican delegation to the United Nations’ Women’s Conference in Beijing the next year.

The Massachusetts native has also served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and, until her nomination Nov. 5, was an adviser to the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“While I may have lost her trusted counsel to our campaign, our country has gained an extremely gifted ambassador,” Romney said in a statement.

Kishore Jayabalan, director of the Rome office for the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Acton Institute, said Glendon’s Vatican experience makes her appointment “unprecedented.”

“She knows the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman Curia,” he said. “She has no learning curve when it comes to Vatican City.”

— RNS