UNITED STATES
Daily Kos
Betty Clermont
The Vatican embassy is operated by the most experienced and oldest continuous foreign affairs department in the world. So, no, no one “duped” or “trapped” any official into having Pope Francis meet with Kim Davis, especially when the pope specifically stated after their meeting that “conscientious objection” by “government employees” is a “human right.”
Today, the pope opened a synod for bishops: ““This is God’s dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman.”
The pope has consistently, since his time as cardinal primate of Argentina, shared Davis’ opposition to same-sex marriage. He has referred to such a union as “the work of the devil,” an “anthropological regression,” and “disfiguring God’s plan for creation.” He has called the movement in many countries to accept same-sex marriage as “ideological colonization that we have to be careful about that is trying to destroy the family.”
In his speech to the UN, Pope Francis “reminded the UN of their duty to recognize ethical limits, … ‘for carrying out an ideological colonization by the imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible.’”
“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.” …
The only “reform” Jorge Mario Bergoglio has brought to the Vatican curia was creating a Secretariat of the Economy under Australian Cardinal George Pell, friend of Rupert Murdoch, and a Secretariat for Communications – which shows where his priorities lie. (The Vatican Bank was forced to begin adopting standardized financial reporting and tightening up its loopholes for money laundering in 2010 or risk being excluded from international financial markets.)
The Secretariat for Communications should be proud of what was accomplished. After the pope had twice sympathized with his US bishops about how much they had suffered from the sex abuse scandal and praised their “courage,” a meeting with five victims abused by clergy or teachers or family members was arranged for the pope’s last day in this country so that that would be the final headline as he boarded the plane for his return to Rome.
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