UNITED STATES/ROME
New York Times
Correction: September 30, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the publication that first reported the meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis. It was Inside the Vatican, not the Vatican Insider.
By JIM YARDLEY and LAURIE GOODSTEINSEPT. 30, 2015
ROME — Pope Francis met privately in Washington last week with Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, adding a new element to an American tour that saw Francis attract huge crowds and articulate left-leaning positions on poverty, immigration, the environment and inequality.
Vatican officials initially would not confirm that the meeting occurred, finally doing so on Wednesday afternoon, while refusing to discuss any details.
Ms. Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Ky., has been at the center of a nationwide controversy over whether government employees and private businesses have a legal right to refuse to serve same-sex couples. She spent five days in jail for disobeying a federal court order to issue the licenses.
On Tuesday night, her lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, said that Ms. Davis and her husband, Joe, were sneaked into the Vatican Embassy by car on Thursday afternoon. Francis gave her rosaries and told her to “stay strong,” the lawyer said. The couple met for about 15 minutes with the pope, who was accompanied by security guards, aides and photographers.
“I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Ms. Davis said Wednesday in an interview with ABC News. ‘Thank you for your courage.’”
“I had tears coming out of my eyes,” she said. “I’m just a nobody, so it was really humbling to think he would want to meet or know me.”
The secretiveness of the meeting, and the Vatican’s refusal to give any information, will inevitably raise questions about why Francis chose to meet with Ms. Davis — and why he kept the meeting secret. Mr. Staver said that he, the Davises and Vatican officials had agreed to not publicize the meeting until after the pope had left the United States because, he said, “we didn’t want the pope’s visit to be focused on Kim Davis.”
Mr. Staver said the idea for a meeting was first discussed on Sept. 14, more than a week before the pope’s arrival. He declined to say who proposed the meeting.
But “this was not a generic meeting in which Kim Davis happened to appear,” Mr. Staver said. The Davises snapped selfies inside the Vatican Embassy. However, he said, “out of deference and respect they didn’t want to pull out a cellphone with the pope. The Vatican had their own photographers there and we’re told the pictures will be released later.”
No photographs had been released by Wednesday evening in Rome.
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