UPDATE: Callista Gingrich is President Trump’s pick to serve as United States Ambassador to the Holy See, the White House announced Friday, May 19. The announcement comes at the start of a nine-day overseas visit for the president, which includes a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on May 24. The selection of Mrs. Gingrich, a lifelong Catholic and documentary filmmaker, had been reported earlier this week by several media outlets.

Callista Gingrich will be nominated as the United States ambassador to the Vatican, according to reports from CNN and the New York Times.

The pick ends months of speculation about who will hold one of the top posts in the Catholic political world—and thus be responsible for managing an awkward relationship between the White House and the Vatican.

Pope Francis and President Donald J. Trump clashed over immigration policies during last year’s Republican primaries, and earlier this year the pope and a high-ranking Vatican official appeared to criticize a range of policies championed by Mr. Trump. The official announcement is expected to come before Mr. Trump and Pope Francis meet on May 24 at the Vatican.

This year the pope and a high-ranking Vatican official appeared to criticize a range of policies championed by Mr. Trump.

Mrs. Gingrich, a musician, a best-selling children’s book author and documentary film producer, does not have a long public record to scrutinize for details about how she might approach her post should she be confirmed. And though she was a regular on the campaign trail during her husband’s unsuccessful run for the White House, she offered little in speeches that can be mined for clues as to how she will approach her new job.

But in an Easter statement from the couple, they described Christianity as “under siege.”

“On one front, it faces a growing secularism, which seeks to place human desires ahead of God and His will,” the April 15 statement reads. “On the other front, radical Islamism seeks to destroy Christianity across the globe.”

Mrs. Gingrich has been a practicing Catholic her entire life, and she is credited with the 2009 conversion to the faith of her husband Newt, who was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1990s.

Mrs. Gingrich is the author of a number of children’s books about U.S. history, told from the vantage point of Ellis, a time-traveling cartoon elephant.

The selection of Mrs. Gingrich to serve as ambassador is not a total surprise. Her husband appeared to lobby publicly for the role, telling reporters in January that she was under consideration by the administration.

Mrs. Gingrich described herself as “a very spiritual person” in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2011, saying that she starts “each day with a prayer, and pray throughout the day, because I am grateful for the many blessings that God has bestowed upon us.”

 

 

Celebrating Newt’s birthday in Rome. Happy birthday Newt!

A post shared by Callista Gingrich (@callygingrich) on

 

In a 2012 New Yorker profile about the possibility she would become first lady, she said, “When Newt became a Catholic, it was one of the happiest moments of my life.”

It appears Mrs. Gingrich is a fan of Pope Francis—and that the pair has already met. A Christmas card from her Twitter account in 2014 shows the pope shaking hands with her and her husband in St. Peter’s Square.

 

 

During the pope’s 2015 visit to the United States, Mrs. Gingrich posted on Instagram that she had attended both his visit to the White House and his speech to the U.S. Congress. She tweeted at the time, “We have been blessed by the visit of Pope Francis.”

The Wisconsin native attended Luther College on a music scholarship and now plays the French horn in a Virginia community band. She also sings in the choir at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., where she and her husband attend Mass. In a 2011 essay about his conversion, Mr. Gingrich said attending Mass at the basilica to hear his wife sing and visiting Catholic churches all over the world with her “opened my eyes to the diversity and richness of the Catholic Church.”

Mrs. Gingrich is the author of a number of children’s books about U.S. history, told from the vantage point of Ellis, a time-traveling cartoon elephant.

She is the head of Gingrich Productions, the company she runs with her husband, which produced two documentaries about Pope John Paul II: one about his 1979 visit to Poland, called “Nine Days That Changed the World,” and one titled “Divine Mercy: The Canonization of John Paul II.” The pair were on hand for the late pontiff’s canonization ceremony in Rome. They visited Catholic parishes and schools throughout the United States promoting the films.

Mrs. Gingrich’s appointment to the Vatican could raise eyebrows in some circles, especially as Rome continues a heated debate about the church’s views on marriage and divorce.

Callista met Newt in 1993, when he was still married to his second wife and Callista was one of his congressional staffers.. They married in 2000, a few months after Mr. Gingrich’s divorce was finalized.

From a church perspective, there are no issues with the Gingrich marriage, as Mr. Gingrich was not received into the church until after he married Mrs. Gingrich.

The Vatican must approve nominees to serve as ambassadors to the Holy See, a process that usually occurs before a candidate is put forward. This is not always the case, however.

Last year, France backed down from its nomination of a gay man to fill the role after church officials dragged their feet for months on the appointment, though the Vatican denied that the nominee’s sexual orientation was the reason.

Still, it is unlikely the Trump administration would announce their pick of Mrs. Gingrich without obtaining a nod from Rome.

The Gingrichs are longtime friends of President Trump, golfing regularly at his resorts and campaigning for him during the 2016 presidential election.

 

 

In a tweet sent last October, Mrs. Gingrich said she and her husband planned to visit the Trump Volunteer Call Center to sign copies of their books, and they also attended the opening of Mr. Trump’s controversial hotel in Washington, D.C.

Speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Mrs. Gingrich said Mr. Trump had “given hope and encouragement to millions of Americans.”

More than a ceremonial role, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See frequently plays host to high-profile American Catholics visiting Rome and facilitates dialogue between the U.S government and the Vatican on a range of issues important to both. In recent years, for example, the Obama administration and the Vatican have shared an interest in fighting human trafficking and slowing climate change.

Pope Francis has also shown a willingness to use the Vatican’s vast diplomatic corps in international diplomacy, which makes the post even more important. President Obama praised Pope Francis and the Vatican for their role in helping to thaw relations between the United States and Cuba.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Gingrich will fill a role last held by Ken Hackett, the former head of Catholic Relief Services who was nominated to the post by President Barack Obama in June 2013. The post was created by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Michael J. O’Loughlin is national correspondent at America and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.