From Business Insider:
President Joe Biden will nominate former Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly as the US ambassador to the Vatican, the White House confirmed on Friday to Insider.
“I am truly honored to be nominated to this role by President Biden, a man of faith and a friend,” Donnelly said in a statement. “If confirmed, I look forward to working with the Holy See on a wide variety of issues, including human rights, religious freedom, immigration, climate change, peace, and poverty.”
Donnelly, of Granger, Ind., is a devout Irish Catholic and known as a “Double Domer” because he received a bachelor’s from the University of Notre Dame and a J.D. from Notre Dame Law School.
Now he’s on the brink of one of the most important jobs for his church in a position known by its formal title as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Holy See.
During the 2020 election, Donnelly served as a co-chair of Catholics for Biden and wrote an Indianapolis Star op-ed defending Biden’s faith.
“Joe Biden lives his faith every day,” Donnelly wrote. “Every Sunday, he is on his knees attending Mass and praying for his country, his family, and all those in need in our beloved nation. I know this because I know Joe Biden and I come from the same Irish Catholic faith tradition.”
From Wikipedia:
Donnelly was considered a moderate Democrat who “sometimes bucks his party on issues such as abortion, defense spending and the environment”. According to Politico, “Donnelly is constantly dogged by Republicans aiming to unseat him” while also facing “disgruntled Democrats who think he’s far too conservative”.In 2013, the National Journal gave Donnelly a composite score of 52% conservative and 48% liberal. According to FiveThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional votes, Donnelly voted with President Trump’s position 54.5% of the time. Congressional Quarterly published a study finding that Donnelly voted with Trump’s positions 62% of the time. According to GovTrack, Donnelly was the second most conservative Democrat, after Joe Manchin, and to the right of moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins. He supported progressive taxation and organized labor, but opposed same-sex marriage and abortion, even in the case of rape, during his 2012 campaign (though he supported an exception in the case of rape in the 2018 campaign). On April 5, 2013, Donnelly endorsed same-sex marriage on his Facebook page.
