France has abandoned its attempts to appoint a gay man as ambassador to the Holy See amid resistance from the Vatican, choosing instead to select him for a post at Unesco.

President François Hollande proposed , his head of protocol, for the Vatican position in January last year. Church officials did not confirm the posting for months, a delay French and Italian media attributed to Stefanini’s sexuality.

On Wednesday, France named Stefanini ambassador to Unesco, the Paris-based UN cultural agency, the minutes of the cabinet’s weekly meeting showed.

Last year, the French Catholic newspaper La Croix cited an unnamed source as saying the Vatican considered it a “provocation” that France’s Socialist government, which in 2013 legalised same-sex marriage, had proposed a gay man for the post.

Pope Francis has maintained Catholic teaching on homosexuality but has struck a more sympathetic personal tone towards gay people. He has said he could not judge gay people of goodwill who were seeking God, and has met members of a Catholic gay rights group in the Vatican.

But the pontiff has shown no sign of easing rules against gay unions or changing the church’s teaching that homosexual acts are sinful, even if homosexuality itself is not.