Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama has named Douglas Kmiec, the Pepperdine University law professor who has become a key impediment to pro-life Catholics as the ambassador to Malta. The move is sure to spark opposition in Catholic circles given Malta's strongly pro-life stance.

Kmiec became the main Catholic cheerleader for the Obama campaign during the 2008 presidential election and his ringing endorsements of the aggressive abortion advocate drew scorn nationwide.

Kmiec has continued defending Obama despite his moves to force taxpayers to fund both abortions and embryonic stem cell research that destroys human life. And he has come to the defense of Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnson, who has compared pregnancy to slavery and is a former lawyer for a pro-abortion group.

He was denied communion last year during a meeting of Catholic business leaders because of his endorsement and repeated campaigning for Obama.

Obama will nominate Kmiec as the ambassador to the Catholic country that is a small Mediterranean island just south of Italy. The decision requires approval from the Senate, which is expected even though his defense of Obama's pro-abortion views may cost him some votes.

Kmiec has been rumored to be a potential choice for Obama as his ambassador to the Holy See, but Obama appointed Catholic college professor Miguel Diaz, who reportedly is pro-life but has compromised his views by backing Obama and others.

Some say Kmiec exposed himself as not fully pro-life in an October 2008 article he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

"Sometimes the law must simply leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively," Kmiec wrote about abortion.

Kmiec's stunning admission wasn't lost on National Review writer Ramesh Ponnuru.

Ponnuru says the Kmiec piece is "pretty clearly an endorsement of the view that given the existence of moral conflict over abortion, the compromise position we should adopt is to be pro-choice."

Kmiec was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan administration but appears to have fallen away from his involvement with pro-life political leaders.

He was dean of Catholic University’s law school from 2001 to 2003 and was a professor at the University of Notre Dame’s law school. UND was involved in a scandal earlier this year that saw it allow Obama to give its commencement speech, during which he was given an honorary degree.

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