U.S. ambassador-designate to Vatican clears Senate Foreign Relations Committee

CatholicVote president Brian Burch speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination for to be ambassador to the Holy See on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. / Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 1, 2025 / 18:23 pm (CNA).

In a party-line vote on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations advanced Brian Burch’s nomination for U.S. ambassador to the Holy See to the full Senate for final confirmation. 

All 12 Republicans on the Senate committee, chaired by Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, voted in favor of Burch, while all 10 of the committee’s Democrat members voted against him. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, now has to bring the nomination to the full Senate floor for a final vote. 

The action comes more than three weeks after Burch’s hearing before the committee, during which he fielded questions on foreign aid, the Vatican-China deal, and the Holy See’s role in securing a lasting peace in the Middle East. 

If confirmed by the full Senate, Burch, who is president of CatholicVote, will step down from his position at the organization, CatholicVote indicated.

During his hearing earlier this month, Burch emphasized his support for the Trump administration’s foreign spending cuts, which have had a widespread impact on Catholic aid organizations, saying: “I think the partnership with the Holy See can be a very good one, but I think those partners have to understand that our foreign aid is not endless, that we can’t fund every last program.”

On China, Burch said he intended to encourage the Vatican to apply pressure on the communist regime concerning its human rights abuses and reported violation of its deal with the Vatican regarding the appointment of bishops. 

“I would encourage the Holy See as the United States ambassador, if I’m confirmed, to resist the idea that a foreign government has any role whatsoever in choosing the leadership of a private religious institution,” he said.

Burch stated his intentions to support Vatican diplomacy to end the Israel-Hamas war, telling the committee he believed the Holy See “can play a significant role” by being “a partner in that conversation and [delivering] the necessary moral urgency of ending this conflict and hopefully securing a durable peace.”

President Donald Trump last December nominated Burch to serve as ambassador to the Vatican, writing in a Truth Social post that “he represented me well during the last election, having garnered more Catholic votes than any presidential candidate in history!” and adding: “Brian loves his Church and the United States — he will make us all proud.”

CatholicVote is a political advocacy group that endorsed Trump in January 2024 and ran advertisements in support of Trump during his campaign. The organization says it spent over $10 million on the 2024 elections.

Burch, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, is a graduate of the University of Dallas, a private Catholic school. In 2020, he wrote a book titled “A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good.” 

According to his biography on CatholicVote, Burch has received the Cardinal O’Connor Defender of the Faith Award from Legatus International and the St. Thomas More Award for Catholic Citizenship by Catholic Citizens of Illinois.