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.
Steve, you can’t seem to define “social justice”, but claim instead that it’s “common sense.”
I disagree. It’s a term used to claim the exclusive moral imperative for leftist goals.
It’s an emotional display meant to signal virtue.
It doesn’t actually mean anything.
KCFleming writes, “‘Steve, you can’t seem to define ‘social justice’, but claim instead that it’s ‘common sense.’ I disagree. It’s a term used to claim the exclusive moral imperative for leftist goals. It’s an emotional display meant to signal virtue. It doesn’t actually mean anything.”
KC, the exclusive moral imperative? Not really. To me social justice means egalitarian treatment by way of law and policy. If you want to define that as leftist, well, so be it. The Bill of Rights and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were about social justice. Which one of those “doesn’t actually mean anything”?
GOP, Trump, Davis, Inhofe, Cruz, and so on. They are truly blessed.
Olly,
Do you support County Clerks receiving gifts over $25?
Why stop at County Clerks then?
Mr Turley wrote:
“If he also supports Davis, it can create some difficult issues with the party line on the Clerk.”
= = =
Jon,
It appears that the GOP is the one’s in the quandry now that Ms. Davis has switched parties. Remember, it has been the GOP that has stood next to Kim Davis’s self inflicted plight. Mike Huckabee even ran a campaign stump speech at the county jail and made Ted Cruz stand in attendance, refusing him a spotlight on Mike’s stage. It is the GOP that stands against climate change. It is the GOP that stands against poverty. Strange bedfellows, indeed, however to pitch this as a quandry for the Dems while failing to accurately depict where the GOP stand on these same issues ignores where the GOP stand in defiance of the Pope.
Planned Parenthood. They have a great travel budget and offered her 1st class.
Who paid for Kimmy D’s travels to DC last weekend?
“To follow Annie’s lead, without progressivism, we’d still be stuck in the black and white ’50s of the movie “Pleasantville.”
Steve,
Your defense of failed progressive policies is to claim without them non-progressives would have actually done nothing? That is progressive logic at it finest; what we’ve done so far that worked we own but what we’ve done that is failed is the fault of others. Distinct classes of people is precisely what we have as a result of progressive policies and the lunacy of the electorate is they believe the very ideology that has secured their lot in life will be the one to get them out of it. Let me boil it down for you; You make your constituents dependent on government, you drive a stake in the heart of the family unit, you dumb down their education and THEN convince them someone else is to blame. Brilliant!
Olly writes, “Steve,Your defense of failed progressive policies is to claim without them non-progressives would have actually done nothing? That is progressive logic at it finest; what we’ve done so far that worked we own but what we’ve done that is failed is the fault of others. Distinct classes of people is precisely what we have as a result of progressive policies and the lunacy of the electorate is they believe the very ideology that has secured their lot in life will be the one to get them out of it. Let me boil it down for you; You make your constituents dependent on government, you drive a stake in the heart of the family unit, you dumb down their education and THEN convince them someone else is to blame. Brilliant!”
What’s better, people dependent on government or people dependent on YOU, , i.e., private enterprise. Stop the class crap. We’re all the same. Dumbing down as you call it is a product of our particular brand of capitalism which doesn’t give a rat’s ass about labor and public social programs to help the losers in the capitalist game, many of them the descendants of slaves owned by YOU or those disenfranchised by YOU.
You blame government, but it wasn’t government that caused the Great Depression. It wasn’t FDR’s work programs. It was YOU.
And in the recession of 2008-2009, that was YOU, too.
As for family units, there are all kinds, not just the perfect Pleasantville proffered by YOU.
Had progressivism not been around, we’d still be stuck in ’50s society where no one was worried about class distinctions. Progressives increased the rate of change to that of a mule compared to that of a tortoise, which is where the Vatican remains.
At least we have gun rights in common, Olly, but otherwise I can tell by your coat my friend you’re from the other side. Won’t you tell me please, who won?
.
If true, the Pope handled it well. If her reports are accurate, he offered his support and advice to stay strong. I’m sure Davis appreciated that support and his prayers. But he didn’t stage it to become a political or media circus. Seems an appropriate way to minister a matter of faith.
Davidm
Your ability to twist and selectively eliminate truths from the situation is unparalleled on this blog. Kim Davis specifically stated that she would not/could not issue marriage licenses to gays because it goes against her religion. She afforded her personal religious beliefs the controlling factor in her work for the government. Her government afforded her the right to have those beliefs but over and above and preeminently the government does not afford her to interpret the laws through her personal religious beliefs. She gave the government the test of religion. Your position is oxymoronic to the point of hypocrisy.
Along with that, the judge did offer her the opportunity to have her name removed from the license and have other clerks issue the licenses. She refused at first. This later became the basis for the compromise that allowed her to leave jail. She then continued to muddy the waters.
This is another case of one position based on an argument going in one direction contained within a larger position based on an argument going in the opposite direction and founded in fact. The fact is and remains that the essence of the issue is and remains that there shall FIRST be a separation of church and state. Within this condition people are free to believe any fairy tale they wish, AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT CONFLICT WITH THE AFFAIRS OF STATE. This very separation of church and state guarantees people like Kim Davis the freedoms to believe whatever it is she believes. She is, in fact, biting the hand that protects her rights. She is the biggest hypocrite of all. She is no different than the Islamic refugee that seeks the protection of a Western nation, a nation that accepts Islam, and then goes about undermining that very nation. Along with being a hypocrite one could safely label her a traitor.
You tend to play the devil’s advocate. Whether that be because you truly believe what you say or you are simply exercising you rights to exercise your argumentative style, in this case you have picked a loser. Kim Davis is an extremely moderate member, perhaps an almost benign member, but she is a member of the group known as religious fanatics, the most dangerous group in the world today. Read the papers.
issacbasonkavich wrote: “… the judge did offer her the opportunity to have her name removed from the license and have other clerks issue the licenses. She refused at first. This later became the basis for the compromise that allowed her to leave jail. She then continued to muddy the waters.”
You are basing your viewpoint on false information. Judge Bunning never offered to remove her name from the form. She asked him to authorize that the same way he was authorizing the marriage licenses to be issued, but he refused to do it. When she left jail, she removed her name on her own authority, which caused people to question whether the licenses are valid. Even Kim Davis does not know if the licenses are valid with altered forms.
To Kim Davis’s credit, she approached the legislature back in January while they were in session to address this issue. The Supreme Court had not yet made their ruling and so the legislature did not act. She received only one response from all her letters to every legislator.
issacbasonkavich wrote: “The fact is and remains that the essence of the issue is and remains that there shall FIRST be a separation of church and state.”
If this were true, then the government has no business ordering people to violate their faith. If the government truly desires to remain neutral in matters of religion, they would not require people to violate their conscience. Until the Obergefell decision, this was not a problem.
issacbasonkavich wrote: “Along with being a hypocrite one could safely label her a traitor.”
This is ridiculous. The words you use have lost their meaning in the context for which you choose to use them.
The Constitution guarantees freedom OF religion, NOT freedom FROM religion. You constantly have this problem of distinction because you embrace atheist and secularist philosophies that distort the Jeffersonian concept of separation of Church and State. Your concept of separation of Church and State is an atheistic concept that is not protected by our Constitution.
It would be Papal support, not indulgence.
Ah, an obscure movie reference from a Femmorhoid.
That clarifies things.
Steve,
“KCFleming: Women are milkmaids at the Vatican.”
This reminds me of the scene in the milking barn in the movie “The Name of the Rose”
Annie: I haven’t seen “The Name of the Rose,” so I can’t fully comment. Vermeer was able to see the beauty of the milkmaid but the Vatican’s portrait puts a glass ceiling above her.
KCFleming: What do YOU think social injustice means? Frankly, I don’t see the need to define social injustice unless we’re trying to divert from common sense. For instance, can you provide for me the last papal conclave at which a woman was given a vote? Can you name for me a Catholic priest who is homosexual or for that matter a Boy Scout who doesn’t believe in “God”?
Olly: What you’ve described as the result of the Great Society concept simply reflects the ruefully inadequate rate of change. To follow Annie’s lead, without progressivism, we’d still be stuck in the black and white ’50s of the movie “Pleasantville.” Nice for some, like Trump and his $200M inheritance, but not the majority.
KCFleming and Olly: Your position creates distinct classes of people which is inconsistent with and harmful to a democratic republic.
“Women are milkmaids at the Vatican.”
Google: Your search – “milkmaids at the Vatican” – did not match any documents.
No results found for “milk maids at the Vatican”.
Update: Vatican spokesman Federico confesses.
“I do not deny that the meeting took place, but I have no comment to add,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
Earlier, Lombardi had said he could neither confirm nor deny the meeting.
Social injustice? How is that even possible given our all out war on poverty? After 50 years, have we not become LBJ’s Great Society? We can thank progressives from both major parties for where we are today.
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/meme-illustrates-total-failure-of-democrats-war-on-poverty
KCFleming – Most excellent article. Thanks for sharing that.
Professor Turley wrote: “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.”
This sentence totally distorts the position of Kim Davis. She is not trying to impose her religious views. She is trying to stay true to her faith when the government demands that she deny her faith. All she asked for is that the legal pathway be made for her name to be removed from the marriage licenses. This is a very small religious accommodation.
Personally, I don’t think she is asking for enough accommodation. No government official should be forced to issue licenses that authorize behavior that their religion teaches is immoral. Such violates the Constitutional requirement that there be no religious test for public office. If the States and the people do not refrain from giving deference to the Obergefell decision, we will be looking at governmental offices that cannot in good conscience be filled by millions of Christians who consider gay marriage immoral. Such is a Constitutional crisis of liberty and freedom for all.
I listened on CNN today a report named Delia Gallagher wrongly report several times that Kim Davis is a federal employee. Her mistake was not corrected by CNN. Such a slip indicates the chaos we have been thrown into by the Supreme Court’s blunder.
Step 1. Define “social injustice.”
Here’s Thomas Sowell on the matter:
“Francis like his predecessors has so far offered very little resistance to social injustice.”
Horsehockey; leftist twaddle on a stick.
KCFleming: Women are milkmaids at the Vatican.
There is a good reason we are not a theocracy. Pope Francis can be given as much airtime as Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi. Ultimately, what they promote must be subordinated to our constitution when it comes to government policy.