The pope's betrayal of Kim Davis

There is a life-sized cardboard figure of Pope Francis in the gift shop of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall Visitor’s Center, where many a tourist took photos before the papal visit, and I am starting to think that that’s all there is to the man.

Christians who got excited when it was revealed that the globetrotting pontiff met with Kim Davis in Washington should tamp down their excitement. The Vatican quickly rushed out a disclaimer denying there was anything significant about the meeting.

This would be similar to the situation in which a friend of yours came a long way to visit you, and the two of you enjoyed a warm visit together, and then after he went on his way, falling under pressure from bullies, he denied that your time with him had meant anything at all.

In fact, didn’t C.S. Lewis write something similar in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader? Lucy Pevensie opens a book of incantations and makes a wish to see what her friends really think about her. By magic she suddenly sees her friends Anne and Marjorie sitting on a train. Anne asks Marjorie whether she will be hanging out with her this semester at school, or whether she will be spending time with that Pevensie girl again. Marjorie, sensing Anne’s disdain for Lucy, and in her weakness wanting to please Anne, who is the coolest girl in school, ends up betraying Lucy and saying that actually she is rather tired of her.

One can only imagine the panicked frenzy that occurred behind the scenes within the corridors of power at the Vatican when it was learned that the Davis meeting was dominating the post-tour news cycle. After all the goodwill they had garnered carrying the water for climate-change apostles in public appearances with President Obama, how could they have been so careless as to upset the homosexual lobby? A way must be found to publicly downgrade the significance of the time with Mrs. Davis, the Kentucky woman who stood up to the gay juggernaut. Heads will roll, you can be sure. Nevertheless, the announcement fed to media organs was presented with official calm and decorum.

Francis’ handlers came up with the perfect sophistic solution to distance themselves from Davis: a casuistic distinction between a papal “audience” and a papal “meeting.” Brilliant. Davis merely had a papal “meeting,” you see—which doesn’t mean much. Now if she had had a papal “audience,” ah, then, we peons could attach more import to her private communing with Pope Francis. A “meeting”? Posh! That’s nothing. You can’t pay much attention to a “meeting,” for heaven’s sake.Why, the only reason that Kim Davis even got to see the pope was because of his “kindness and availability,” explained Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, who added for good measure that it was just a “brief meeting.”

Ah, it was “kindness,” then, nothing personal. (I thought it was only the mafia who betrayed people while saying, “Nothing personal.”) But wouldn’t true and biblical kindness be sincerely meaning your words of support to Mrs. Davis, and not denying them for political gain once you’re back home?

Do you know who did get an “audience” with the pope in Washington, and not just a lowly “meeting”? A man named Yayo Grassi, an openly gay Argentinian and former student of Francis’ who arrived at the “audience” with his longtime partner.

And this, you can be sure, is what the Vatican wants you to see. For a man like the pope—who is supposedly nonpolitical and whose meeting with Mrs. Davis we are advised to see as entirely devoid of political meaning—this is a remarkable choice of rendezvous. But what perfect damage control for the braying dogs of the gay lobby. The worm has turned, the script is flipped, and Kim Davis, I’m afraid, has been betrayed.