{"id":62,"date":"2009-10-05T21:05:21","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T21:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html"},"modified":"2009-10-05T21:05:21","modified_gmt":"2009-10-05T21:05:21","slug":"miguel-diaz-meets-the-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Diaz meets the press"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new U.S. envoy to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, had his first sit-down with reporters<\/a> on Monday, and stressed dialogue and “collaboration”:<\/p>\n

Stressing the priorities that he said the Obama administration has in common with the Vatican, Diaz sketched out an agenda of collaboration against terrorism, religiously inspired violence, HIV\/AIDS and human trafficking, and in favor of interracial, intercultural and interreligious dialogue.<\/p>\n

“The points where we have coordination today between this president and the Holy See are more than just one,” he said, speaking in Italian as he did for much of the meeting. “We have the possibility of collaboration on so many points.”<\/p>\n

As might be expected, Diaz downplayed differences over abortion and other biomedical issues which, as one reporter mentioned, the pope himself raised with President Obama when they met at the Vatican in July.<\/p>\n

“In any international relationship between two states, it’s normal to have differences,” he said, quoting Obama’s statement that it is possible to “disagree without being disagreeable.”<\/p>\n

The ambassador voiced his ambition to be a “bridge builder” between the Vatican and the White House, a job that he acknowledged would include explaining Catholic Church teaching on controversial issues to the Obama administration.<\/p>\n

“But I think it’s important that one understands, too, that I’m not representing the church,” said Diaz, who is Catholic, making a point he repeated several times. “I’m representing the United States and my president.”  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more at the link.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new U.S. envoy to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, had his first sit-down with reporters on Monday, and stressed dialogue and “collaboration”: Stressing the priorities that he said the Obama administration has in common with the Vatican, Diaz sketched out an agenda of collaboration against terrorism, religiously inspired violence, HIV\/AIDS and human trafficking, and in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\nMiguel Diaz meets the press - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Miguel Diaz meets the press - 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The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"The new U.S. envoy to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, had his first sit-down with reporters on Monday, and stressed dialogue and “collaboration”: Stressing the priorities that he said the Obama administration has in common with the Vatican, Diaz sketched out an agenda of collaboration against terrorism, religiously inspired violence, HIV\/AIDS and human trafficking, and in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-10-05T21:05:21+00:00","author":"Deacon Greg Kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html","name":"Miguel Diaz meets the press - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-10-05T21:05:21+00:00","dateModified":"2009-10-05T21:05:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/miguel-diaz-meets-the-press.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Miguel Diaz meets the press"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee","name":"Deacon Greg Kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"description":"A Roman Catholic deacon serving the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, Greg Kandra is News Director for the diocese's cable channel, NET (New Evangelization Television.) Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}