Washington -A Kentucky clerk who went to jail for defying a federal court’s orders to issue same-sex marriage licenses says she met briefly with the pope during his historic visit to the United States.
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The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, didn’t deny the encounter took place but said Wednesday in Rome that he had no comment on the topic.
Rowan County clerk Kim Davis and her husband met privately with Pope Francis on Thursday afternoon at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., for less than 15 minutes, said her lawyer, Mat Staver.
“It was really very humbling to even think that he would want to meet me or know me,” Davis said in an interview with ABC.
Davis, an Apostolic Christian, spent five days in jail earlier this month for defying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In a telephone interview late Tuesday, Staver would not say who initiated the meeting with the pope or how it came to be, though he did say that Vatican officials had inquired about Davis’ situation while she was in jail. He declined to name them.
“He told me before he left, he said ‘stay strong.’ That was a great encouragement,” Davis said of the pope during the ABC interview. “Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we’re doing and agreeing, you know, it kind of validates everything.”
She didn’t say in the interview whether she had a private audience with the pope or she was part of larger crowd.
Davis was in Washington for the Values Voter Summit, where the Family Research Council, which opposes same-sex marriage, presented her with an award for defying the federal judge. While in Washington, the longtime Democrat said she was switching to the Republican party because she felt abandoned by Democrats in her fight against same-sex marriage.
Pope Francis did not focus on the divisive debate over same-sex marriage during his visit last week. As he left the country, he told reporters who inquired that he did not know Davis’ case in detail, but he defended conscientious objection as a human right.
“It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right,” Francis said.
A “person” has a right to be a conscientious objector, but a government official isn’t a person, since they have the option to quit.
This is not the gay marriage debate, it’s in general, since otherwise you’ll have chaos when government officials would inflict their beliefs on others
One thing good the pope did. These liberal democRATs want to destroy American families. If you don’t have a mother to give you love and a father to give you discipline America is history.
I wonder if the Pope would meet with the clerk in Monroe who wants to install Sharia law due to his conscience… After all, a conscience is a conscience, and that clerk really believes in Sharia!
How was it a secret meeting if we all know about it?
The constitution says government shall not infringe on the exercise thereof
I don’t know anyone who disagrees with the fact that reasonable accommodation for her religious beliefs should be made. And had she just not blocked the deputies to do the job instead, this would never have been an issue. Her job is to ensure that the department she oversees operates within the law. The shame really is that she and her supporters in the hillbilly, redneck and “mountain people” communities are too stupid to understand the difference.