Pope Francis did not hold a private meeting with Kim Davis and his “encounter” was not an endorsement of her views.
According to a piece in the New York Times this morning:
Vatican officials announced on Friday that Pope Francis did not hold a private meeting with Kim Davis last week in Washington — as has been widely reported — but that Ms. Davis was among dozens of guests ushered into the Vatican’s Embassy in Washington for a brief meeting with him.
Francis was unaware of the specifics of the case of Ms. Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who has refused to grant a marriage license to a gay couple, despite a judge’s orders that she do so. The case has become a focal point in the debate over the tensions between religious liberty and marriage equality in the United States.
“Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who had been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said in a statement released on Friday morning, referring to the Vatican’s term for its embassy.
Lombardi added, “Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.”
Read more here.
