Has the administration astutely taken a detour around the Catholic culture wars in naming Sotomayor to the SC and Diaz to the Holy See?Here's John Allen's take:"Yet Diaz is described by colleagues as broadly pro-life, and in any event he has never been among the most prominent Catholic apologists for a soft position on abortion. In that sense, no one in the Vatican is likely to style the appointment as provocative. (Rome may have other concerns, chief among them the extent to which a fairly obscure theology professor from Minnesota is likely to carry serious political weight inside the Obama administration. That remains to be seen.)"Some Catholics may also be alarmed by Diazs fondness for Latin American liberation theology, which became a bte noir of the Catholic right during the 1970s and '80s due to its affinities with Marxism and class struggle. References to figures such as Gustavo Guterrez and Ignacio Ellacura run through Diazs writings, and one news outlet referred to Diaz as a Cuban liberation theologian in its headline. For the record, thats not really accurate. In his writings, Diaz distinguishes between the preferential option for the poor in Latin America and the preferential option for culture in Hispanic theology in the United States, focused on the survival of Latino/a identity.Anyway, Diaz is nobodys idea of a radical...."Rest here:http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/diaz-nomination-obama-passes-major-catholic-test

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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