Vatican: France still sans ambassador

The Villa Bonaparte, headquarters of the French embassy in Vatican.

The position of ambassador of France to the Holy See has remained vacant since the departure of Bruno Joubert on February 28, 2015. The candidate proposed by the Elysée in January of the same year, Laurent Stefanini, was never approved by the Vatican. According to the correspondent of La Croix in Rome, on February 28, 2016, there is still no “clear prospect of a solution.”

According to agency iMedia on January 14, 2016, the profile of the candidate suggested by Paris, “a Catholic nonetheless discreet about his private life and a competent diplomat,” does not reveal the full explanation. According to the Roman news agency, it would seem that the Holy See “did not appreciate that the approval process should have been made public as soon as the candidate was chosen in the Council of ministers, on January 5, 2015.” Moreover, “an internal struggle at the Quai d’Orsay for this coveted position might also have had consequences. The convergence of these motives would explain the unfortunate blockage.”

According to the protocol of the Holy See, an unwritten rule requires that approval be denied to candidates who are public sinners. Diplomat Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge, proposed by Paris in 2008, was refused by the Holy See because of his “personal profile.” France then remained without an ambassador for 10 months.

This rule was, however, not respected in 1998 for a previous ambassador of France. iMedia specified that this French diplomat had even been the subject of “bitter regret” for Rome, when he was called back to Paris sooner than anticipated, at the time of the Jubilee of 2000. iMedia concluded that “other diplomats are accredited by the Holy See” despite the inconsistency of their private lives with Catholic morality.

(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – iMedia – La Croix – DICI no. 333, 25/03/16)