By Andrea Gagliarducci
Vatican City, Apr 24, 2015 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis met April 17 with Laurent Stefanini, the openly gay foreign service officer named by France to be ambassador to the Vatican. News of the private audience, which was kept strictly confidential, was reported April 22 by the French magazine Le Canard Enchainé, although the magazine said that the meeting took place April 18. A source from the Vatican Secretariat of State told CNA that the meeting actually took place in the late evening of April 17, and confirmed that it lasted about 15 minutes ... According to diplomatic right, a State can reject the request for accreditation of an ambassador, without giving any explanation about the reasons why. A State can even decide not to give a response at all to the request for accreditation of the new ambassador ... In order to receive Holy See diplomatic approval, ambassadors appointed to the Holy See must meet certain prerequisites and must behave in accordance with Church teaching. For example, an ambassador to the Holy See cannot be a divorced and civilly remarried person ...
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-meets-with-gay-french-ambassador-nominee-72369/
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