Pope urged Kim Davis to 'stay strong' during secret meeting

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis met secretly with Pope Francis last week during the pontiff’s stop in Washington, D.C., according to her attorney.

Vatican officials did not deny the account of the meeting, first reported by the Catholic website Inside the Vatican, but would not confirm any details. Davis' attorney Mat Staver said members of the pope’s team contacted him shortly before Francis arrived in the United States to arrange the visit.

Davis, an elected official in Rowan County, is embroiled in a religious liberty battle over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Under Kentucky law, the licenses bear her name and signature, an authorization that violates her conscience, Davis maintains.

Although Pope Francis did not directly address Davis’ case during his visit, he told reporters traveling on the plane with him back to Rome that conscientious objection is a human right that should extend to individuals in government positions.

Until Inside the Vatican broke the story, neither Davis nor Staver had talked about it.

“We did not want to release the information up to this time, nor did the Vatican, because the Vatican wanted to focus its message on a lot of issues (during the papal visit), and at the right time we ultimately released the information and the Vatican gave us the opportunity to do so,” Staver told The New York Times.

Staver did not attend the meeting, which was held at the Vatican Embassy. To avoid attracting press attention, Davis and her husband, Joe, came in the back entrance, and Davis disguised her now recognizable long hair. The meeting took place at about 2:30 p.m. EDT Thursday and lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes, Staver said.

Francis encouraged Davis to “stay strong” in her fight, she told Inside the Vatican shortly after the meeting.

“The pope spoke in English,” she said. “There was no interpreter. ‘Thank you for your courage,’ Pope Francis said to me. I said, ‘Thank you, Holy Father.’”

Davis, who attends a Pentecostal church, had to ask a Vatican official how to address Francis and whether it would be appropriate to give him a hug. It was, and she did. She described the experience as an “extraordinary moment.”

Francis gave Davis and her husband rosaries, a gift that reduced the embattled clerk to tears.

“I was deeply moved,” she said.

As was common in his meetings with everyday Americans during his visit, Francis asked Davis to pray for him.

“Then he said to me, ‘Please pray for me,’” Davis recalled. “And I said to him, ‘Please pray for me also, Holy Father.’ And he assured me that he would pray for me.”

Conservative Catholics and evangelicals disappointed by the pope’s failure to be more blunt on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage during his visit, took satisfaction from news of his desire to meet with and encourage Davis.

“The pope’s amazing private action shows that his public drumbeat on religious freedom was no afterthought,” Alliance Defending Freedom’s Matt Bowman noted. “It was at the heart of his mission to the United States.”

In a statement issued today, Staver said Davis wasn’t fighting for religious liberty in a vacuum.

“The challenges we face in America regarding the sanctity of human life, marriage, and religious freedom are the same universal challenges Christians face around the world,” he said. “Religious freedom is a human right that comes from God. These values are shared in common by people of faith, and the threats to religious freedom are universal. Kim Davis has become a symbol of this worldwide conflict between Christian faith and recent cultural challenges regarding marriage.”