Help wanted: Britain's search for Vatican envoy causes minor ruckus

Published: 2005-09-02

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The British government caused a stir this summer when it put out a "want ad" in some major newspapers looking for "a high caliber individual" to fill a vacancy at its Embassy to the Vatican. But the job on offer wasn't for receptionist, cook or gardener; it was the ambassadorial position itself, marking the first time Great Britain cast its net for an ambassador out into the sea of the general public rather than spear someone from its smaller pond of diplomatic heavies. The Vatican did not formally send out a reaction to Britain's new hiring method because "it's their choice and we wouldn't protest about their own procedures," one informed Vatican official told Catholic News Service. But further roiling the diplomatic waters was news that the embassy itself and the ambassador's residence were going to relocate into the same compound as the British Embassy to Italy. Three former ambassadors to the Vatican called the cost-cutting move "cheese-paring in the extreme" -- a culinary way of saying "really stingy." But here, too, the Vatican did not protest. It is not the first time a country has consolidated its embassies to the Vatican and to Italy in the same compound; Israel, for example, has such an arrangement.

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