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| Pope Francis allegedly met 'anti-gay' Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in secret | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| Pope Francis allegedly thanked Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses on religious grounds, for her courage after reports say the pairhad a private meeting. | |
| The meeting, which was neither confirmed nor denied by the Vatican, will likely be seen as a personal endorsement of Davis’s actions by the Argentinean pontiff, and seems to contradict the general tone of the pope’s public remarks during his tour of the US, when he avoided issues like abortion and gay marriage and emphasised the need for mercy and goodwill. | |
| Although some religious conservatives hailed Davis as a modern-day Martin Luther King who was willing to endure five days of jail for her faith, many other Americans saw her defiance as an act of anti-gay bigotry and dangerous refusal to respect the law. | |
| Pope Francis reportedly met with Davis and her husband Joe at the Vatican’s Washington DC embassy on Thursday, according to Liberty Counsel, a Christian lobby group. | |
| A statement on the website carries the stamp of the Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman, Mat Staver, who is acting as Davis’s lawyer in her dispute with the court. Liberty Counsel is considered one of 18 hardline anti-gay propaganda groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which closely monitors hate speech. | |
| An online Catholic news site called Inside The Vatican, which is edited by Robert Moynihan, was the first to report the alleged meeting. It said the pope thanked Davis for her “courage” and told her to “stay strong”. As is customary in many of his personal meetings, he then reportedly asked Davis to pray for him and presented both her and her husband with a rosary, the Liberty Counsel said. | |
| Davis is quoted as saying she was “humbled” by the experience: “I never thought I would meet the pope. Who am I to have this rare opportunity? I am just a county clerk who loves Jesus and desires with all my heart to serve him. | |
| “Pope Francis was kind, genuinely caring, and very personable,” her statement continued. “He even asked me to pray for him. Pope Francis thanked me for my courage and told me to ‘stay strong’.” | “Pope Francis was kind, genuinely caring, and very personable,” her statement continued. “He even asked me to pray for him. Pope Francis thanked me for my courage and told me to ‘stay strong’.” |
| The Vatican said it would neither confirm nor deny whether the meeting occurred. | |
| Francis was asked by a reporter on his return flight from Philadelphia to Rome whether a government official could refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and claim it was a religious right. | |
| Although Davis’s name was not mentioned, it was clearly a reference to the controversy surrounding her objection, which in the US prompted a debate about the limits of religious freedom. | |
| Francis began his answer by saying that he could not “have in mind all cases that can exist about conscientious objection”. He did not say whether he had met with Davis. But he did elaborate by saying he believed that such religious-based objections were a “human right”, but did not delve into the precise issue of same-sex marriage. | |
| When the Guardian spoke to Staver last week, the activist and attorney said he knew the pope was “personally following the Kim Davis situation”. | |
| Asked how he knew, Staver replied: “I just know, trust me, I just know. He is very aware of it, and no doubt his comments [in his Congress address, about religious liberty] refer to that, and also Obamacare. These issues are certainly behind his comments...” | |
| For now, the Vatican is not shedding any light on why the pope allegedly met with Davis and why it chose to keep the meeting secret but Francis sought to avoid any meetings that could be interpreted as controversial during his trip to Cuba and the US. He declined, for example, to meet with Cuban dissidents. | |
| The surprise news of the meeting will raise eyebrows within the Vatican bureaucracy – where press leaks can serve the interests of one faction of another– because it was revealed just days before a meeting of bishops to discuss issues related to the family. | |
| The so-called synod of bishops will pit conservative forces within the church against more progressive officials, who are trying to get the church to adopt a more lenient approach on issues concerning divorce and the treatment of children of gay couples. | |
| If Francis was trying to portray an image of a pope that was floating above America’s culture wars, his apparent meeting with Davis puts him right back on the battleground, and conservatives will feel cheered by it. | |
| Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses may have met Pope Francis in se |