Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations 2014, holds the diplomatic rank of Apostolic Nuncio (Papal Ambassador) and the ecclesiastical title of a titular archbishop. He is assisted by the Reverend Father Roger Landry, a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River (in Fall River, Massachusetts, a large suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, south of Boston), former pastor of St. Bernadette's Parish there. Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations The Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations is the representative of the Holy See at the United Nations. The diplomatic mission does not have the status of Permanent
Foreign relations of the Holy See accredited also to the Holy See. For reasons of economy, therefore, smaller countries accredit to the Holy See a mission situated elsewhere and accredited also to the country of residence and perhaps other countries. Massimo Franco, author of "Parallel Empires", asserted in April 2009 that the Obama administration had put forward three candidates for consideration but each of them had been deemed insufficiently pro-life by the Vatican. This claim was denied by the Holy See's spokesman Federico Lombardi, and was dismissed by Thomas Patrick Melady, former United States Ambassador to the Holy See, as being in conflict with diplomatic practice.