For a solid overview of what this all means, I would recommend reading John Allen Jr.’s piece at the Catholic blog Crux.
Here are some snippets that caught my attention:
If anyone suspected that Pope Francis didn’t really mean the strong words he spoke on religious freedom last week in the United States – that he was phoning it in, while his real concerns were elsewhere – news that he held a private meeting with Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis certainly should lay that suspicion to rest.
The Vatican is not officially commenting on the meeting, which was first reported by Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican magazine. A spokesman told Crux on Wednesday that “I won’t say anything,” which, in effect, is a way of allowing the report to stand.
Taken together with his unscheduled stop to see the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Davis encounter means Francis has expressed personal support to leading symbols of the two most contentious fronts in America’s religious freedom debates – the contraception mandates imposed by the Obama administration, and conscientious objection on gay marriage.
And this:
First of all, the fact that someone arranged a brief encounter between Francis and Davis does not necessarily mean that Francis initiated the contact, or even that he necessarily grasps all the dimensions of her case. By her own account it was an extremely brief greeting, just long enough for the pope to tell Davis to “stay strong” and to give her a rosary.
It would be over-interpreting things to read the meeting as a blanket endorsement of everything Davis has said or done.
In addition, we don’t yet know how Francis sees the balance between honoring one’s conscience and upholding one’s responsibilities as a public official, because he hasn’t addressed that question at any length.
And this:
…the Davis meeting confirms that the US trip amounted to the public debut of “Francis 2.0,” meaning a pope more clearly perceived as standing in continuity with Catholic teaching and tradition, as well as in solidarity both with previous popes and with the bishops.
To put the point in crudely political terms, Francis is a figure who utterly defies the usual left/right divides, equally capable of meeting Kim Davis and embracing poor immigrant children at a Harlem school – seeing both as part of a continuum of concern for human dignity.
That will be a source of consolation to some and consternation to others, but in any event it’s now officially part of the Francis narrative.
As the events of this alleged meeting continue to unfold, the latest information released from the Vatican seems to indicate that Pope Francis did not have a private meeting with Kim Davis. Instead, she was just one of several people invited to meet him by someone else. It was not an arranged meeting and he did not give her his support. This seems to validate some statements about conservative Catholics trying to undermine the Pope. It also reflects pretty poorly upon Davis' legal team and other supporters who are trying to spin this story into papal support for Davis.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/kim-davis-pope/index.html
Instead, the exact opposite is beginning to emerge. I think as this continues to unfold we are going to see this whole thing blow up in the faces of her legal team. I also have a feeling the Vatican is going to take some actions over the chicanery involved in trying to set him up like this.
The Church has repeatedly taken a different position on gay marriage and LGBT in Francis' time as pope. Discrimination is not allowed. LGBT are still Catholics and are not thrown out of the Church. The actions of Davis and many others are flat out bigotry because they choose to deny basic rights to LGBT via discrimination. The Church has supported civil unions with full rights, but not marriage for a long time unlike some Protestant faiths. Unfortunately, some Catholics seem to be more Protestant than Catholic about this. I expect to see some more clarification over this matter as the story continues to unfold.
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There is a report on Esquire that this meeting was not arranged by Pope Francis, but was rather set up as an ambush by conservative Catholics who wanted to manipulate the Pope into this meeting.
Other sources are pointing out some issues with it as well. I am sure the spin by the rightwing will paint it as giving Davis credibility, but some closer examination reveals that much of that is made up. The issue of discrimination is being overlooked by many on the right (no surprise there).
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/10/01/3707930/why-is-the-vatican-being-so-weird/
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a38440/pope-francis-swindled-kim-davis-meeting/
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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/clerk-jailed-gay-marriage-pope-encouraged-34144849
“The pope also had a private meeting with the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order that, along with dozens of dioceses, is suing President Barack Obama over the birth control requirement in the Affordable Care Act, arguing that an exemption for religious objectors is too narrow.
Both meetings help “refute the mistaken idea that the pope was somehow trying to put distance between himself and the current, on-the-ground religious freedom controversies and challenges that the American bishops and others are facing,” said Rick Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor who specializes in religious freedom.”
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