[WASHINGTONTIMES] The B.O. regime, in what's been called an egregious slap in the face to the Vatican, has moved to shut down the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See -- a free-standing facility -- and relocate offices onto the grounds of the larger American Embassy in Italia.The new offices will be in a separate building on the property, Breitbart reported.
And while U.S. officials are touting the relocation as a security measure that's a cautionary reaction to last year's attacks on America's facility in Benghazi, several former American envoys are raising the red flag.
It's a "massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties," said former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson in the National Catholic Reporter. "It's turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italia. The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and ... [it's] an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican."
Mr. Nicholson -- whose views were echoed by former envoys Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady -- also called the justification for closing the existing facility a "smokescreen," Breitbart reported.
"That's like saying people get killed on highways because they drive cars on them," he said in the report. "We're not a pauper nation ... if we want to secure an embassy, we certainly can."
Moreover, the existing facility has "state of the art" security, he said.