Kim Davis Secretly Met With Pope Francis, Her Attorney Says

Kim Davis and Pope Francis met in secret, her attorney says, citing a report by a website that reports on the Vatican.

While he was in Washington D.C., just after he delivered his address to Congress, Pope Francis met in secret with Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, her attorneys state. Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, citing a lone report at the website Inside the Vatican, which is not affiliated with the Vatican, (and which is currently offline, web cache here ) made the announcement Tuesday evening via a press release.

“The Pope met privately with Kim Davis and her husband, Joe, at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, September 24, which was the birthday of Kim’s father. Pope Francis spoke with Kim and Joe Davis in English,” Staver’s press release reads.

According to Vatican Insider’s Robert Moynihan, Kim Davis greeted the Pope, “and the two embraced.”

UPDATE: Kim Davis’ Attorney: Vatican Invited Her To Meet The Pope. Vatican Spokesman: No Comment

Moynihan admits “there is no recording of this conversation, or photographs, as far as I know,” but cites scripture, Luke 8:17, for support. “Vatican sources have confirmed to me that this meeting did occur,” Moynihan insists, “the occurrence of this meeting is not in doubt.”

He also states, “Kim Davis gave me this account of the meeting shortly after it took place.”

“The Pope spoke in English,” she told me. “There was no interpreter. ‘Thank you for your courage,’ Pope Francis said to me. I said, ‘Thank you, Holy Father.’ I had asked a monsignor earlier what was the proper way to greet the Pope, and whether it would be appropriate for me to embrace him, and I had been told it would be okay to hug him. So I hugged him, and he hugged me back. It was an extraordinary moment. ‘Stay strong,’ he said to me. Then he gave me a rosary as a gift, and he gave one also to my husband, Joe. I broke into tears. I was deeply moved.

“Then he said to me, ‘Please pray for me.’ And I said to him, ‘Please pray for me also, Holy Father.’ And he assured me that he would pray for me.”

Moynihan states the meeting was kept secret because the “Vatican evidently feared the ‘politicization’ of a ‘pastoral trip.'”

Liberty Counsel did not state why it chose to publicize the meeting.

On board his airplane on his way home from his U.S. trip, Pope Francis was asked by a reporter if he believed a government official had the right to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a direct nod to Kim Davis.

“I can’t have in mind all the cases that can exist about conscientious objection,” the Pope Francis responded, without mentioning Davis, “but yes, I can say that conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right.” He added, “if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right.”

CBS News reports it is “awaiting confirmation of the meeting from Vatican officials.”

Earlier today, and yesterday, Liberty Counsel was embroiled in a scandal involving a claim its chairman made over the weekend to hundreds of Kim Davis supporters at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit. Staver, showing a photo of a football stadium in Lima, Peru, claimed 100,000 Christians gathered there while Davis was in jail for contempt of court, for the sole purpose of praying for her.

Staver was forced to retract that claim.

 

This article has been updated to properly identify the name the website Inside the Vatican.

Image by US Papal Visit via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Joe.My.God.