Gay envoy stand-off could last two years

France’s stand-off with the Vatican over its gay candidate for ambassador to the Holy See could last until 2017 as Paris is refusing to give in to pressure from the Holy See to put forward another name, writes Tom Heneghan.

The Paris daily Libération has reported that Paris will leave the post vacant at least until France’s next presidential election in two years. “It’s dead,” it quoted an informed source as saying of the nomination, which has been held up since early last year when the name of the respected career diplomat Laurent Stefanini was leaked to the media before the Holy See had responded to it. The Élysée Palace and Quai d’Orsay refused any public comment, but their cryptic off-the-record comments about “nothing new to say” seemed to bolster the report by two respected senior journalists.

Stefanini, a practising Catholic discreet about his private life, had support from French prelates in Paris and Rome after an earlier stint as a junior diplomat at the embassy. Libération said he was “a collateral victim of Marriage for All”, the same-sex unions that Hollande’s government legalised amid mass street protests supported by the French Church.