The lawyer for Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has stated that she met with Pope Francis during the pontiff’s visit to Washington D.C. last week and received encouragement from him in the meeting. It is a surprising disclosure, if true, but Attorney Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel insists that the Pope spoke to Davis and her husband in English and said “Thank you for your courage” and told her to “stay strong.”
The Vatican is mum on the alleged meeting or who was present on September 24 at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. That was the same day that he had spoken to Congress.
That adds an interesting political wrinkle for Democrats who generally love (as do I) this Pope for his views on climate change, poverty, and other issues. The Pope however also spoke against abortion and does not support same-sex marriage. If he also supports Davis, it can create some difficult issues with the party line on the Clerk. After all, as we discussed today, you have one Democrat who reveres the Pope so much that he is actually dispensing the Pope’s drinking water to family from the glass used during his speech before Congress.
Of course, there is no reason why either Republicans and Democrats cannot still oppose the position of Davis even if (and that is still an “if”) the Pope supports her position. After all, many support the right to choose even when they are personally against abortion and remain practicing Catholics. Yet, it is intriguing that this is one of the people that the Pope would choose to meet if the account is correct.
I am surprised if the Vatican agreed to this meeting. Even the people on rope lines are often screened for the Pope though he is known to plunge into crowds. If this was a truly arranged “meeting,” it is pretty significant that Davis would be selected for such a meeting and encouragement. Politicians like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have been criticized for their support of Davis, who asserts the right to impose her religious views of the legitimacy of a marriage before performing her purely ministerial functions. Reporters have been trying to get the Vatican to confirm whether the Pope has added his voice of support.
Of course, the Vatican could spin the meeting as support for someone following her faith rather than endorsing her legal position. Nevertheless, the alleged meeting may be the most surprising in this even-filled Papal visit.
A Papal Indulgence? Kim Davis Said Pope Met With Clerk and Told Her To “Stay Strong” [UPDATED]
What a guy cheering on a woman as she denies her fellow citizens the right to marry based soley upon the dogmatic misconceptions of religon.
If you are in love and want to marry your consenting adult partner do it.
You do not need the approval of the government nor religon.
Thanks Annie. It is amazing that I have to explain that my reference to the pledge of allegiance is about “nation under God” which suggests that we must eventually become a theocracy.
This David also plays fast and loose with the concept of common law. Court rulings cannot be constitutional or statutory law but can be common law. The notion that Obergefell has not established a US common law is too silly to deserve analysis. It is. Yes, it can be overruled either by the SC itself or by a constitutional amendment which would fly in the face of the 14th.
I wonder whether this David knows why Abe Lincoln was considered a US citizen at birth. At that time there was no constitutional or statutory law which defined how a person became a US citizen at birth. The only statutory laws related to citizenship dealt with immigration and naturalization. It was at that time a very old (from the Roman Empire) common law which in essence stated “if his birth certificate shows the he was born on US soil then he is a US citizen at birth”! For children of free residents the 14th amendment which codified that common law changed little if anything.
It is not widely realized that children born in the US to former slaves during the three year interval between the ratification of the 13th and 14th amendments were US citizens at birth exactly because of that US common law! US and State common laws can be extraordinary powerful determinants of our governance.
Dieter,
It’s frustrating interacting with David because he a ‘slip slider’. It seems when he is pinned down in mistruth or misinformation, he slips slides the conversation away to a different focus. David has said several times that he would like to see a Constitutional Amendment acknowledging God. Now we all know what this would be, a backdoor to a Theocracy. David is just too slippery to admit it.
Annie wrote: “It seems when he is pinned down in mistruth or misinformation, he slips slides the conversation away to a different focus.”
What you call a mistruth or misinformation is a misreading of what I said. Rather than you acknowledging that you misunderstood what I said, you find some way to cast blame upon how I said something. I try my best to be direct and honest at all times. I can’t control your inability to understand me other than by patiently repeating myself and being consistent in my speech.
Annie wrote: “David has said several times that he would like to see a Constitutional Amendment acknowledging God.”
This much is true. All our Presidents have acknowledged God. Because of the new secular humanism that is sweeping over the legal profession because of the ACLU and atheist groups who have misinterpreted the First Amendment, it would be prudent that we make the Constitution clear that everybody has the liberty to reference and acknowledge God, in public, even when they are employed by government. The concept of freedom of religion has been lost from our Constitution. In the minds of many, the First Amendment is about freedom FROM religion rather than freedom OF religion. The original purpose of the First Amendment needs to be restored for the sake of liberty and the proper acknowledgment of natural rights.
Annie wrote: “Now we all know what this would be, a backdoor to a Theocracy. David is just too slippery to admit it.”
I do not believe this would be a backdoor to theocracy.
You know how I abhor religious institutions. Why would I want to be ruled by them? I choose not to be ruled by them or entangled with them in any way, so it is illogical for you to fear that I would want to open up some door to be ruled by them. You are just being emotional.
Davidm2575. You wrote: “Acknowledging God does not make our country a theocracy anymore than the Declaration of Independence makes us a theocracy by appealing to the authority of God”
That is a vile misrepresentation of my statement. I did not refer to “acknowledging God” but to claiming God’s authority for refusing to fulfill a government duty which is what Ms. Davis did. Hers is the most beautiful definition of a theocracy I have ever read. Thank you for that Kim!
The Declaration of Independence has not established a single law which pertains to our governance.
As for you, I will no longer answer any of your diatribes until you stop lying..
Dieter Heymann wrote: “That is a vile misrepresentation of my statement. I did not refer to “acknowledging God” but to claiming God’s authority for refusing to fulfill a government duty which is what Ms. Davis did.”
I certainly did not intend to misrepresent anything you said. Dieter, you previously wrote: “When Ms. Davis was asked on whose authority she refused to issue a marriage license to two qualified males she in essence replied “my God”. That seals the case. She objects because she demands that we become a theocracy.”
The only thing you referenced is her acknowledgement of God. Kim Davis wanted an injunction to hold off the duties of her office as directed by the governor until the State Legislature could convene to address the matter. She never refused to fulfill a governmental duty. Her governmental duty is in dispute, being directed now by a federal court and a governor to violate the Constitution of the State of Kentucky which she swore to uphold when she was elected into office. I wish everyone had the integrity that Kim Davis has found.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a theocracy as: “a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god.” Kim Davis is not trying to establish any church or group of priests to rule in the name of God. She simply acknowledges that God rules, and her God is the same God as that of President Obama and other Presidents who have sworn by the help of God to keep the Constitution and the laws of this country.
If Kim Davis is guilty of wanting to establish a theocracy, then so is Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, he appealed to Almighty God the same way that he did when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, which is the founding document for our nation. In the Declaration of Independence, anticipating King George asking by what authority we declared independence, answered exactly the same way that Kim Davis did: by God’s authority. Jefferson wrote that the united States of America was “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” Jefferson also acknowledged that we did so “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”
Appealing to God’s authority does NOT establish our government as a theocracy. Few have fought harder than Thomas Jefferson to establish a wall of separation between the civil and religious authorities, and his appeals were directly to the authority of God for doing so.
Our Supreme Court has attempted to establish the religion of Secular Humanism in the Obergefell decision, and has forced their newfound philosophy of hedonism upon the conscience of millions of people in this nation. Let us remember the words of Thomas Jefferson about how the conscience ought to be free and not compelled by government to violate the religious dictates of the heart.
Jefferson hated the kind of government oppression that Kim Davis now suffers. He wrote, “… the impious presumption of legislators and rulers … who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, HAVE ASSUMED DOMINION OVER THE FAITH OF OTHERS, setting up THEIR OWN OPINIONS and modes of thinking as THE ONLY TRUE AND INFALLIBLE… therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, UNLESS HE PROFESS OR RENOUNCE THIS OR THAT RELIGIOUS OPINION, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens HE HAS A NATURAL RIGHT … to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles ON SUPPOSITION OF THEIR ILL TENDENCY, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own… NO MAN… SHALL OTHERWISE SUFFER ON ACCOUNT OF HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OR BELIEF; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
Thomas Jefferson
Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1357
Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.
david – I cannot find it either, but it has been about 20 years since I taught AZ Constitution.
Paul writes, “david and deiter – Arizona has gotten rid of the common law in the state. So, if this latest case is common law, Arizona does not have to follow it.”
Gotten rid of the common law? The common law is a fill-the-gaps means to an end where no statute covers the dispute, isn’t it? What do you mean by your statement above? I don’t quite follow your meaning or its context.
stevegroen – if it is not in a statute it does not exist in Arizona.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a38440/pope-francis-swindled-kim-davis-meeting/ The nuncio is a Pope Benedict loyalist. Everything around Kim Davis ends up a huge mess.
swm – the whole Kim Davis – Pope affair is much ado about nothing.
David, no doubt the Pope is still Catholic, but there IS doubt as to him meeting with her if he had known who she was before hand.
Annie wrote: “… there IS doubt as to him meeting with her if he had known who she was before hand.”
That doubt is created by homosexual activists. It is not legitimate doubt.
Only a few dozen people out of millions meet with the pope that day, and you want us to believe that they did not vet her and know who she was? She did not invite herself. She was invited because they knew who she was, and out of millions of people, they selected her.
Just in case you missed it, this is what the Pope teaches about homosexuality:
” … “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
Now whose side do you think the Pope is on? Would the Pope support what Max teaches here about homosexuality and gay marriage, or would the Pope support what Kim Davis teaches about it?
I think it is quite clear that the Pope supports what Kim Davis teaches about homosexuality. Their doctrines are basically the same on this subject.
Inga – the Pope does a meet and greet with a lot of people, why not Kim Davis. I am more interested in the former student who is gay and his boyfriend. Is the Pope signalling that homosexuality is alright now?
Hi SWM,
I doubt that the Pope actually told her to “stay strong”, but the Vatican wouldn’t be so crass to refute it. The Nuncio might find himself out of a job.
Max and anonymous,
Yes, I saw that yesterday, so it seems like the person who got her in to see the Pope is in some hot water with the Pope.
Annie wrote: “… so it seems like the person who got her in to see the Pope is in some hot water with the Pope.”
That’s what homosexual activists want you to believe. Just ask yourself what the Pope’s church doctrine is about same sex marriage. Then choose what is reliable information and what is homosexual propaganda.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this is what Pope Francis believes about marriage and homosexuality:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm#2357
…
Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
III. THE LOVE OF HUSBAND AND WIFE
2360 Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.
2361 “Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death.”143
Tobias got out of bed and said to Sarah, “Sister, get up, and let us pray and implore our Lord that he grant us mercy and safety.” So she got up, and they began to pray and implore that they might be kept safe. Tobias began by saying, “Blessed are you, O God of our fathers. . . . You made Adam, and for him you made his wife Eve as a helper and support. From the two of them the race of mankind has sprung. You said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; let us make a helper for him like himself.’ I now am taking this kinswoman of mine, not because of lust, but with sincerity. Grant that she and I may find mercy and that we may grow old together.” And they both said, “Amen, Amen.” Then they went to sleep for the night.144
2362 “The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.”145 Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:
The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.146
2363 The spouses’ union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple’s spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.
The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.
* Conjugal fidelity
2364 The married couple forms “the intimate partnership of life and love established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent.”147 Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are no longer two; from now on they form one flesh. The covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble.148 “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”149
2365 Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one’s given word. God is faithful. The Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and woman to enter into Christ’s fidelity for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they bear witness to this mystery before the world.
St. John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.150
* The fecundity of marriage
2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is “on the side of life,”151 teaches that “it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life.”152 “This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.”153
2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154 “Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility.”155
2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:
When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156
2369 “By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood.”157
2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158 These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil:159
Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.160
2371 “Let all be convinced that human life and the duty of transmitting it are not limited by the horizons of this life only: their true evaluation and full significance can be understood only in reference to man’s eternal destiny.”161
2372 The state has a responsibility for its citizens’ well-being. In this capacity it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful information, but certainly not by authoritarian, coercive measures. The state may not legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses, who have the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children.162 In this area, it is not authorized to employ means contrary to the moral law.
…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/10/02/vatican-downplays-importance-of-pope-franciss-meeting-with-kim-davis/ “On Friday, the Vatican said Davis was among “a number of guests” who were “invited by the Nuncio,” a church term for the ambassador, to greet the pope. “Very brief greetings,” the Rev. Thomas Rosica, an English-language spokesman for the Vatican, told the Associated Press. “And in the pope’s characteristic kindness and warmth and hospitality, he shook people’s hands and gave them rosaries. We should understand it as that. In terms of why this person was invited, you have to ask those questions of the nunciature.”
A controversial figure both in Rome and in the United States, Viganò has gone further than other church leaders in his campaign against same-sex marriage. Among other things, he appeared at an event this year with the National Organization for Marriage, a group that vocally opposes same-sex marriage and with which U.S. bishops typically don’t publicly ally.” Some say this was an attempt to weaken the pope in front of a big meeting on family related ssues.