UNITED STATES
Deseret News
By David Gibson, Religion News Service
Published: Friday, March 18
The headline was eye-catching, and most likely that was the goal:
“Pope fires Vatican ambassador to U.S. over Kim Davis,” shouted the story this week in the left-leaning Daily Kos.
Pretty amazing, if it were true.
In reality, Pope Francis’ current ambassador, or nuncio, to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, was still in his job, though that could change at any minute.
Church sources say that the pontiff has chosen French-born Archbishop Christophe Pierre, now the Vatican’s representative to Mexico, to be his next envoy to the U.S., a move that has generated widespread speculation about what Pierre will do when he arrives, in part because the man he is replacing has been so controversial.
Vigano gained notoriety last September when it emerged that he set up a secret meeting between Francis and Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who briefly went to jail for refusing to sign marriage certificates for gay couples.
The encounter took place at the Vatican Embassy in Washington when the pontiff was visiting the nation’s capital. When news leaked a few days after Francis returned to Rome, it caused an uproar because it made it seem the pope had quietly been giving support to an icon of the very culture wars that he had spent his visit preaching against.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.