Pope's meeting with Kim Davis not an endorsement, Vatican says

[EmperorNapoleon]

I agree, except that the right to conscientious objection has consequences. We once hired a painter who had spent time in prison for refusing to swear alliengence in order to be drafted. In a less democratic country the consequence could have been death.

Ms. Davis certainly has the right to conscientious objection, but without a consequence our country ceases to be a government of laws.

Exactly. A right to conscientious objection doesn’t equate to immunity from the consequences of your actions.

 

[kozlosap]

If the Vatican was blindsided by this, then I would imagine that two heads might roll or be reassigned. Just say’ nnn

 

[SilverLight]

This makes more sense to me than some of the other conclusions I’ve seen bandied about here and elsewhere online. So many of us seem determined to show that Pope Francis supports whatever we are passionate about, but I never read that much into this particular story. My feeling is that someone other than Pope Francis proposed and arranged this meeting, and that our Holy Father was just being a gracious pastor, as Clem says.

I have to agree with you there.

 

[mikekle]

Or else it sounds like somewhere in the Vatican a rooster is crowing.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

…Yayo Grassi, an openly gay man, brought his partner, Iwan, as well several other friends to the Vatican Embassy on September 23 for a brief visit with the Pope. A video of the meeting shows Grassi and Francis greeting each other with a warm hug.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Grassi declined to disclose details about the short visit, but said it was arranged personally by the Pope via email in the weeks ahead of Francis’ highly anticipated visit to the United States.

“Three weeks before the trip, he called me on the phone and said he would love to give me a hug,” Grassi said…

…Grassi said the Pope has long known that he is gay, but has never condemned his sexuality or his same-sex relationship. Grassi said he and Iwan (he declined to disclose his last name due to privacy concerns) also met Francis last year in Rome.

“He has never been judgmental,” Grassi said. “He has never said anything negative.”

“Obviously he is the pastor of the church and he has to follow the church’s teachings,” Grassi added. “But as a human being he understands all kinds of situations, and he is open to all kinds of people, including those with different sexual characteristics.”

Grassi said he believes the Pope was “misled” into meeting with Davis, who served six days in a Kentucky jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/pope-gay-washington/index.html

 

[MaryT777]

Sounds like Davis and her lawyer weren’t being truthful.

cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/kim-davis-pope/index.html

I agree with this perspective.

Mary.

 

[Corki]

It seems the Vatican is usually clarifying the Pope for sounding like he’s going off-message.

There’s a lot of Catholics who would love to meet the Pope. How did she get to be so lucky?

She was invited by the Nunciature, something conveniently left out of the CNN story. It is in the actual Vatican statement. America Magazine was trying to spin this yesterday as a chance meeting with Mrs. Davis along with any number of people who hang out after each event and hope to get a handshake or a word from His Holiness. Not so.

Being one of even “several dozen” with a personal invitation to meet with the Pope at the Apostolic Nunciature - not one of the public appearances - is still a pretty big deal.

Whether it was the Pope reaching out to Mrs. Davis or the Nuncio offering a perspective of his own, who knows?

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I agree, except that the right to conscientious objection has consequences. We once hired a painter who had spent time in prison for refusing to swear alliengence in order to be drafted. In a less democratic country the consequence could have been death.

Ms. Davis certainly has the right to conscientious objection, but without a consequence our country ceases to be a government of laws.

Conscientious objection is a complicated area - I don’t think it’s possible to make broad statements like these. (Not to mention that if conscientious objection is built into the law, it’s not violating the law.)

In the United States, for the most recent wars, conscientious objectors were given the opportunity to server in other ways - in WWI, those who refused to do non-combat military work were jailed, but since then non military options have opened up as well, because we realized that that was wrong. I see no reason to work backwards, especially in this case where an 1) accommodation could easily be reached without harming any of what the government has decided are its interests, and 2) there is no worry of Mrs. Davis faking her objections out of cowardice or similar, since she gains nothing material and in fact has already been imprisoned.

Again, broad statements are difficult, but I’m reasonably confident in saying that conscientious objection does not need consequences of legal punishment when a) by claiming objector status, the person gains little to nothing outside of being able to follow their conscious (eg, safety from not being in a military), and b) there is little to no burden on the government or anyone else by accommodating the objection. In general, substituting some other duty makes sense, as is done in the case of the military, but even that doesn’t seem applicable here (though if it turns out that it is, I don’t think anyone would object).

In the case of Davis, the licenses could simply be issued under someone else’s authority. All that need be done is for the state to say that deputy clerks can issue licenses in their own right, or similar, and we’d be done.

Hardly a matter worth imprisoning someone over.

 

[ringil]

It certainly wasn’t the private 15 minute face-to-tace encounter that the Lawyer was reporting.

Sounds more like she was simply one in a large group of folks meeting the Pope.

 

[ringil]

Hardly a matter worth imprisoning someone over.

I agree with you here.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Via The Washington Post, I discovered The Liberty Counsel has released a statement regarding Fr Lombardi’s statement:

lc.org/newsroom/details/popes-words-and-meetings-support-conscientious-objection

 

[meltzerboy]

Exactly. A right to conscientious objection doesn’t equate to immunity from the consequences of your actions.

Same as illegal immigrants then who are punished for breaking the law? While recognizing the dangers inherent in interpreting the law any which way based on one’s personal or religious beliefs, perhaps the law can be bent, if not broken, on occasion.

 

[Joe_5859]

Via The Washington Post, I discovered The Liberty Counsel has released a statement regarding Fr Lombardi’s statement:

lc.org/newsroom/details/popes-words-and-meetings-support-conscientious-objection

Interesting. They’re doubling down on it being a private meeting.

If you look at the Vatican press release, though, it doesn’t say that Davis was part of some receiving line, but only that she was one of dozens of people who met him briefly. The two accounts could both be correct.

The only portions of the visit the Davis team keeps recounting are “Thank you for your courage”, “Stay strong”, and “Pray for me”. It seems clear that the meeting we brief. I don’t know how papal visits go in the nunciature, but I can image people being taken in one person/group at a time—in one door and out another before the next person gets let in the room.

 

[TMC]

Interesting. They’re doubling down on it being a private meeting.

If you look at the Vatican press release, though, it doesn’t say that Davis was part of some receiving line, but only that she was one of dozens of people who met him briefly. The two accounts could both be correct.

The only portions of the visit the Davis team keeps recounting are “Thank you for your courage”, “Stay strong”, and “Pray for me”. It seems clear that the meeting we brief. I don’t know how papal visits go in the nunciature, but I can image people being taken in one person/group at a time—in one door and out another before the next person gets let in the room.

I agree. My wife and I have met several officials and famous-types in just that way. Its called a “meet and greet.”

I’ll give an example. Last year my wife met LL Cool J. She knew the organizer of a concert he did for a military base. The organizer knew she was a fan and arranged for her to meet him. She was brought in through one door (by herself), spoke to him for a minute or two, took a picture and left through another door. A couple dozen other people did the same. LL was super nice, but he had no idea who she was, met with her as a favor to the organizer, and the meeting meant next to nothing to either of them. Meeting the Pope is a much bigger deal, but not much more significant in terms of doctrine, policy, Papal positions, etc.

 

[Cactus]

It seems to me that the Vatican is not usually very quick to correct false impressions. Why is this one different?

 

[_Abyssinia]

Interesting. They’re doubling down on it being a private meeting.

If you look at the Vatican press release, though, it doesn’t say that Davis was part of some receiving line, but only that she was one of dozens of people who met him briefly. The two accounts could both be correct.

The only portions of the visit the Davis team keeps recounting are “Thank you for your courage”, “Stay strong”, and “Pray for me”. It seems clear that the meeting we brief. I don’t know how papal visits go in the nunciature, but I can image people being taken in one person/group at a time—in one door and out another before the next person gets let in the room.

In the following article it says:

Davis’ lawyer, Mat Staver, had said the audience lasted 10 minutes and was just between the Pope, his client and her husband. Lombardi disputed that account, saying “several dozen” people were present at the Vatican Embassy during the meeting.

edition.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/kim-davis-pope/

In the Liberty Counsel statement (lc.org/newsroom/details/popes-words-and-meetings-support-conscientious-objection) it says there were “Vatican security and personnel.” in the “private meeting” ? How did Fr Lombardi mean “several dozen” ? They could both be right here.

 

[TMC]

It seems to me that the Vatican is not usually very quick to correct false impressions. Why is this one different?

A good question. In fact, my impression is that the Vatican rarely issues these kinds of corrections. I suspect the Vatican may be annoyed with the way Liberty Counsel is using this and wants to put a stop to that.

 

[litldog2]

What would be wrong if it was an endorsement? As Catholics, we don’t believe in gays marrying.

I don’t understand why political correctness has to enter into our faith.

 

[HCTC]

Conscientious objection is a complicated area - I don’t think it’s possible to make broad statements like these. (Not to mention that if conscientious objection is built into the law, it’s not violating the law.)

In the United States, for the most recent wars, conscientious objectors were given the opportunity to server in other ways - in WWI, those who refused to do non-combat military work were jailed, but since then non military options have opened up as well, because we realized that that was wrong. I see no reason to work backwards, especially in this case where an 1) accommodation could easily be reached without harming any of what the government has decided are its interests, and 2) there is no worry of Mrs. Davis faking her objections out of cowardice or similar, since she gains nothing material and in fact has already been imprisoned.

Again, broad statements are difficult, but I’m reasonably confident in saying that conscientious objection does not need consequences of legal punishment when a) by claiming objector status, the person gains little to nothing outside of being able to follow their conscious (eg, safety from not being in a military), and b) there is little to no burden on the government or anyone else by accommodating the objection. In general, substituting some other duty makes sense, as is done in the case of the military, but even that doesn’t seem applicable here (though if it turns out that it is, I don’t think anyone would object).

In the case of Davis, the licenses could simply be issued under someone else’s authority. All that need be done is for the state to say that deputy clerks can issue licenses in their own right, or similar, and we’d be done.

Hardly a matter worth imprisoning someone over.

You are certainly right that conscientious objection is a complicated area, and conscientious objection exemptions were given during the Vietnam War based on religious affiliation. The objector had to be a member of an organized religion that was categorically opposed to war - not just the Vietnam war but all war. In the case of Ms. Davis that would equate to belonging to a religion categorically opposed to marriage.

The man about whom I wrote was a Catholic. When he received his draft notice, he did not try to get a medical exemption; he did not go to Canada; he did not hire a lawyer and stall the inevitable; he did not ignore the notice and go on about his life trying to avoid arrest. He went to the induction center, refused to pledge, and went to prison. That is a conscientious objection of the sort that i, personally, can respect. In my humble opinion, if Ms Davis conscientiously objects to issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, she should resign her elected position. That would be a conscientious objection that I would respect.

 

[Joe_5859]

In the following article it says:

edition.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/kim-davis-pope/

In the Liberty Counsel statement (lc.org/newsroom/details/popes-words-and-meetings-support-conscientious-objection) it says there were “Vatican security and personnel.” in the “private meeting” ? How did Fr Lombardi mean “several dozen” ?

I don’t know that CNN is accurately representing the Vatican press statement. The press statement states: “Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who had been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City.” It does not say that these “several dozen” were all meeting Pope Francis at exactly the same moment as Kim Davis, nor that they were all in the room with her at the same time. That was my point about how the two accounts could be reconciled.

As to the “ten minutes”, I just chalk that up to rounding error. Perhaps the lawyer was being deliberately misleading, but it could just be that he was estimating. I’m sure the whole experience for Davis and her husband lasted 10-15 minutes even if they only were actually in front of Pope Francis for a minute. Or maybe it just felt a lot longer to her. I’ve had that happen to me for certain things. Watching the video playback brought home the reality that what seemed to take minutes was actually over in 15 seconds. So that little detail doesn’t really strike me as that odd.