It was pre-planned as a covert affair. It undercuts any good his visit did. It leaves the worst possible taste in the mouth. It was, in a word, unforgivable.
US | Fri Oct 2, 2015 9:56am EDT
Related: U.S., Pope, Subjects, Gay
Marriage
'Sense of regret' in Vatican over pope meeting with
gay marriage opponent
VATICAN CITY | By Philip Pullella
Pope Francis waves as he leads the weekly audience in Saint
Peter's square at the Vatican, September 30, 2015.
Reuters/Max Rossi
Pope Francis' meeting last week with
an American woman at the center of a row over gay marriage was not something he
had sought and should not be seen as an endorsement of her views, the Vatican
said on Friday.
One Vatican official said there was
"a sense of regret" that the pope had ever seen Kim Davis, a Kentucky
county clerk who went to jail in September for refusing to honor a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling and issue same-sex marriage licenses.
The encounter in Washington was
originally kept secret and has sparked widespread debate since it became public
this week, proving something of a misstep for the pontiff.
Looking to smother the fierce
controversy, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Davis was one of
"several dozen" people who had been invited by the Vatican ambassador
to see Francis during his visit to the U.S. capital.
"The Pope did not enter into
the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not
be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and
complex aspects," Lombardi said in a statement.
"The only real audience granted
by the Pope at the Nunciature (Vatican embassy) was with one of his former
students and his family," the statement said.
The meeting with Davis disappointed
many liberal Catholics but delighted conservatives, who saw it as a sign that
the pope was clearly condemning a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize
same-sex marriage.
Davis said on Wednesday that the
pope had thanked her for her courage and told her to "stay strong",
adding that knowing that he agreed with what she was doing "kind of
validates everything".
While Lombardi declined to take
questions on the incident, his assistant, Canadian priest Father Tom Rosica,
laid the blame on the Vatican embassy in Washington, saying it had
underestimated the impact of Davis's presence at the reception.
EMBASSY UNDERESTIMATED SIGNIFICANCE
"I'm not sure that they (the
embassy) realized how significant it would be," he told reporters.
Rosica said he did not believe the
pope was even indirectly involved in inviting Davis, adding that the greeting
was very brief and that she and her husband were part of a line of guests at
the Washington embassy before the pope left for New York.
He said the pope was most likely not
fully aware of how controversial a figure Davis had become.
"I would simply say her case is
a very complex case. It has all kinds of intricacies. Was there an opportunity
to brief the pope on this beforehand? I don't think so. Was an in depth process
done? No, probably not," he said.
Asked if the pope had been set up
intentionally by someone in the embassy, Rosica said: "No, reading all of
the information, listening to all of the facts, these things happen."
Rosica said he also doubted that the
Davis and her husband spent 15 minutes with the pope, as her lawyer had
reported, saying "there simply was not enough time".
Davis has said her beliefs as an
Apostolic Christian prevent her from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex
couples. Her church belongs to a Protestant movement known as Apostolic
Pentecostalism.
Rosica said he hoped the Davis
incident and its aftermath would not distract from the significance of the U.S.
trip.
"The visit was extraordinary
... so to allow this to kind of overshadow it would be very unfortunate. This
is not the centerpiece of the papal visit. This is one small part of it, but it
is a loaded centerpiece."
(Reporting by Philip Pullella,
Editing by Crispian Balmer and Ralph Boulton)
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