Editor’s Note: Brian Burch, who is being described in the press today as from Chicago, was approved as the Ambassador of the United States to the Vatican. While for Catholics this has some importance, it is actually not very important for the United States, which, though it has had full diplomatic relations with the Vatican City State since 1984, does not yet provide its Ambassador with an embassy at Rome: he gets a small office, with a secretary who receives mail. During the previous Trump administration, their Ambassador was rarely even at Rome. — Burch is the co-founder and former CEO of CatholicVote, a political organization which attempts to convince Catholics to vote for one of the two Masonic political parties in the United States.

The U.S. Senate stalled the approval of Trump’s nominee, Brian Burch, until the news broke that Prevost is about to be accused of being involved in sexual abuse. — The optics are horrible, as it implies that members of the U.S. Senate think such a personal qualification is enough to convince them to have an ambassador at the Court of Saint Peter.