Gay lobby puts pope in a corner

POPE Francis did not ask to meet a Kentucky county clerk who had been jailed for refusing to issue marriage licences to gay couples secretly and did not offer her unconditional support, the Vatican said yesterday.

Looking to limit controversy after last week’s meeting in Washington between the pope and Kim Davis, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said she was one of several dozen people who had been invited by the Vatican ambassador to see Francis.

“The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects,” Lombardi said.

A senior Vatican official, who declined to be named, said there was a “sense of regret” within the Holy See over the meeting, which was originally kept secret

Many gay Catholic Americans said they had felt shock and disappointment at reports that Pope Francis had met Davis.

“It was a kick in the stomach,” said Nicholas Coppola, a Catholic New Yorker.

Davis was briefly jailed in Kentucky for refusing to issue licences to gay couples after the US Supreme Court ruled in June that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states.

Davis said that violated her Christian beliefs, and her stance has come to symbolise the sharp division in American public opinion over the issue of same-sex marriage.

Davis’ attorney, Mat Staver, said the meeting with Pope Francis was not intended to send a political message but rather to encourage Davis to stay committed to her religious convictions. Gay and transgender advocates, who lobbied the Vatican for in-person talks with the pope during his US visit but were denied, say the meeting with Davis has been deeply insulting.

“This sends a clear message that the Vatican simply doesn’t care about millions of devoted LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] Catholics, who wish to be a part of the Church they love,” Sarah Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, a gay and transgender media monitoring group, said.

The meeting was also puzzling, advocates say, because it contradicted comments made by Francis that have been seen as supporting gay and transgender people.

After he famously replied, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay men serving in the clergy during the first year of his papacy, Francis was named person of the year by the Advocate, the largest gay interest magazine in the United States. — Reuters