UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Massimo Faggioli
Professor of History of Christianity, University of St. Thomas
The meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis threatens to overshadow the success of the pope’s visit to the United States. The response to the visit says a lot about the climate created in the United States around the pope’s visit and the inability for some in the church to acknowledge and receive Pope Francis. It says nothing, however, about the position of the pope, the concrete case of Kim Davis, the question of LGBT Catholics in general or same-sex marriage in the civil society. To understand the contours of the meeting we should keep in mind a few things.
First point: Popes meet with a lot of people, both during the general audiences, and even more while traveling. The ways of organizing these meetings vary widely, especially when the pope travels, and the pope himself is often unaware of what’s been planned for him. A worse incident happened – without any fault of his own – when Benedict XVI met at the Vatican, during a meeting with thousands of pilgrims, Rebecca Kadaga, the Ugandan political figure who rose to prominence during the legislative debate about the criminalization of homosexuality.
Second point: It is clear that the non-public meeting between the pope and Kim Davis has forced the hand of the pope in order to make him say something he avoided saying during the trip to America. Lawyers for Kim Davis did the rest, choosing the perfect timing for the revelation: that is, when the pope had already left America and during a time of day in Rome (where I am these days) when it was impossible for the Vatican to react. But Queen Victoria’s “never complain, never explain” no longer works, even for the pope, especially because of the 24-hour news cycle.
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