SKETCHY 
 
 The pontiff found his reformer image tarnished when it was announced he met with Kim Davis. The group behind the political coup? The Liberty Counsel. 
 
 Around 8 p.m. on September 29, the Liberty Counsel, Kim Davis’s legal representation, tweeted a report from Inside the Vatican that Pope Francis had a secret meeting with their client. Robert Moynihan, the writer who broke the story, had gotten his information exclusively from the Liberty Counsel. 
 
 What started out as a rumor about a closed-door meeting quickly evolved into something much bigger—the claim that Pope Francis, for all of his kindness toward LGBT people, was really on the side of the Religious Right. 
 
 You can imagine how the secret meeting might have gone, said the Liberty Counsel: Pope Francis embracing a humbled Kim Davis, encouraging her to “stay strong,” and validating her fight against gay marriage. And then mere hours later, with poor, sweet Kim fresh in his memory, telling journalists that government officials—why, just like that Kentucky gal!—have the right to conscientious objection. 
 
 But many journalists with connections inside the Vatican, myself included, were having difficulty figuring out exactly what transpired between Francis and Davis because the Liberty Counsel’s story was so incredibly vague. Who, for instance, initiated the meeting—and why? 
 
 According to Davis’s lawyer, Mat Staver, the meeting came “from the Vatican itself”—which reads as his deceptive way of saying, “Pope Francis didn’t actually invite Davis to the embassy, but someone with Vatican connections did, so we’re going to keep saying Vatican over and over until enough people think the Holy Father actually invited our client to meet him.” 
 
 Though many pressed Staver to release the name of the Vatican official, he held out as long as he could until eventually the secret broke. The meeting was initiated by Archbishop Vigano, Vatican ambassador to the U.S., who is a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. 
 
 Last spring, for example, Vigano attended an anti-gay rally organized by the National Organization for Marriage. In a press release, NOM called Vigano the “official representative of Pope Francis,” which—as is implied by the designation—they took as a papal seal of approval for their fight against gay marriage. (This is why Vigano has won himself the ire of many Catholics—he should’ve known that when he wades into a culture war, he drags Francis unwittingly with him.) 
 
 The inconsistencies with the Liberty Counsel’s story were infuriatingly apparent from go. For example, Staver told CBS that Francis definitely knew who Kim Davis was, before their meeting: “Pope Francis,” he said, “has been following the story of Kim Davis and obviously is very concerned about religious liberty, not just in the United States, but worldwide.” But in an interview with Time, Staver said that he didn't know if Francis knew who his client was, but he assumed the pope had heard of her because “her story has been published worldwide.” 
 
 The Vatican quickly realized they had to weigh in. Admitting that Francis had some brief encounter with Davis, the statement from the Holy See’s press office made clear that the meeting “should not be considered a form of support” for Davis’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Moreover, the Vatican didn’t even consider Davis a “real audience,” saying she was just one of dozens paraded in front of the pontiff at the Vatican embassy. 
 
 That sounds like a diplomatic way of saying this: Francis met Davis, but he probably had no idea who she was. And regardless, as James Martin, the Jesuit priest and author, notes in America Magazine, “despite what Ms. Davis said, a meeting with the pope does not ‘kind of validate everything.’” 
 
 The Liberty Counsel didn’t back down at all. They argued that Pope Francis made clear in an interview that he does in fact support their client by virtue of the fact that he supports conscientious objection. 
 
 Staver argued that whether or not his story was factually accurate, it was symbolically accurate: Pope Francis supports conscientious objection, and since the Liberty Counsel sees Davis as a conscientious objector (many disagree with that assessment, by the way), then they don’t think it’s a lie to present Francis and Kim’s meeting the way they have. 
 
 To put it in theological terms, the Liberty Counsel expects us to ignore the letter of what they say and pay attention to the spirit of what they say. This explanation is an odd strategy for, you know, attorneys. “Your honor, you’re getting tripped up here on the evidence! Look at the big metaphorical picture!” 
 
 This kind of deceptive wordplay isn’t a new game to the Liberty Counsel. Just last month they pulled something similar. 
 
 Imagine this, they said. Tens of thousands of Christian opponents of gay marriage filling a field in Peru, for the sole purpose of lifting up Kim Davis, their sister in Christ, in prayer as she wages war on gay pagans. You can, in fact, imagine this because the Liberty Counsel, Davis’s legal representation promised that it happened. There are even pictures to prove it, they said. 
 
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 The picture of a 100,000-strong rally in Peru that the Liberty Counsel tweeted out to prove that there was global support for their client was actually from a prayer rally from May 2014. It had absolutely nothing to do with Davis. 
 
 It now appears, a statement from the Liberty Counsel read, “the photograph presented to [Davis’s attorney] Mat Staver was an honest mistake.” What’s not a mistake, however, the Liberty Counsel said, is that “there is widespread support for Kim Davis. Last week she was recognized by many people as she walked through the Philadelphia, New York LaGuardia, and Washington, D.C. Reagan airports.” 
 
 Again, he argued, his lie was symbolically true. Spirit, not letter, and whatnot. 
 
 Founded in 1989 by husband and wife attorneys Mathew Staver and Anita Staver, the nonprofit’s goal is to provide legal services to those causes they feel are “dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family,” according to the group’s website. In other words, they provide pro bono legal representation to people who are fighting on their side of the culture war. 
 
 The group is notorious for opposing homosexuality and abortion, and fighting for its version of religious freedom. It’s also been extremely critical of President Obama. “I know for a fact salvation is not arriving on Air Force One,” Mat Staver once said. 
 
 Ahead of the Obergefell decision, Staver co-authored a Marriage Pledge, in which he “respectfully warned” the judges not to “cross the line” on God-ordained marriage. 
 
 “Make no mistake about our resolve. While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross.” 
 
 Staver organizes and is a key speaker at an annual conference called The Awakening, which bills itself as “an in-depth Prayer and Patriotism event where people are united by love for our country’s freedom and our faith in Christ.” According to a conference schedule from 2012, topics of discussion include Israel, Islam, the LGBTQ agenda, and abortion. 
 
 The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the Liberty Counsel as a hate group. Importantly, the SPLC does not classify religious groups as hate groups simply because they believe or preach that homosexuality is sinful (religious groups have a protected right to that belief) but because they propagate known falsehoods, and often employ “groundless name-calling.” 
 
 For example, despite the fact that reparative therapy has been discredited by science, in 2006 the LC launched its “Change is Possible” campaign, to educate youth that “unwanted same-sex attractions can be overcome.” Railing against society-threatening values like diversity and tolerance, the LC encouraged students to start Gay to Straight Clubs on their campuses, and to ask faculty to include “the ex-gay viewpoint” in all discussions of homosexuality. These initiatives, they suggest, are life-saving: “Former homosexuals have lost their jobs and been physically assaulted because they dared to tell others that people can and do overcome same-sex attractions.” 
 
 Multiple requests for comment from the Liberty Counsel went unreturned, but last month Staver told the Orlando Sentinel he rejects the hate label, claiming that “critics have misconstrued his comments and maligned his motivations in service of their own agenda to smear anyone who doesn’t condone homosexuality.” 
 
 Staver is the author of the 2004 book Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk, which argued that “sanctioning same-sex marriage would have a profound destabilizing effect on the health, welfare, education, and morals of the country.” The book is full of pithy, confusing Staverisms, like: “We should not play Russian roulette with marriage.” 
 
 “When it comes to anti-LGBT hate groups,” said a representative of the Human Rights Campaign, the Liberty Counsel is “in a class of their own.” The HRC has long followed the Liberty Counsel, noting that the group supports “despicable anti-LGBT criminalization laws abroad, compares being LGBT to drug addiction, and defends the abusive and scientifically discredited practice of ‘so-called’ conversion therapy.” 
 
 The Counsel’s involvement with Davis, said the spokesperson, is “merely the latest in a deplorable, decades-long record of attacking LGBT people, their dignity, and their rights.” 
 
 A well-researched article on the HRC’s website documents dozens of cases the Liberty Counsel has been involved with. Notably, the group represented the evangelical Scott Lively against charges of “crimes against humanity” for his alleged involvement in the creation of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act. “This lawsuit against Pastor Lively,” wrote Staver on the Liberty Counsel’s website, “is a terrifying attempt to use vague international law to silence, and eventually criminalize, speech by U.S. citizens on homosexuality and moral issues.” 
 
 The suit against Lively should scare everyone, he continued, “because it is a direct threat against every American’s freedom of speech and free exercise of religion by the use of international law.” 
 
 Staver is an expert in peddling fear. For instance, an advertisement for one of his Awakening conferences warned, “A war is raging against our shared values. Our faith and freedom are under attack.” 
 
 This is a theme of many Liberty Counsel press releases. In a writeup on Kim Davis, Staver warns, “The PURGE of Christians in America has begun.” (The word “purge” is used five times in the release.) Staver warns, “If this judge’s decision is allowed to stand, then every American Christian will be at risk of facing the PURGING of their faith and ultimately the loss of their jobs.” 
 
 He then asked Concerned Christians Everywhere for—what else?—their money. 
 
 Staver’s fear-mongering tactics have certainly paid off, as Bethany Rodgers explains in the Orlando Sentinel. Since its creation, she writes, “the nonprofit has ballooned from a tiny venture collecting less than $200,000 in yearly donations to a multipronged organization that hauled in more than $4 million in the 2013 tax year.” The group employs 10 attorneys, and has several offices in the U.S., and another one in Israel. 
 
 To be clear: This is not some fringe right-wing group enjoying little to no influence in the world. Whenever there’s a fight to be had over gay marriage, abortion, or religious freedom, you can almost count on someone from the Liberty Counsel showing up. That’s why Staver’s stunt with the pope, though maddeningly unfortunate, is business as usual for the culture warrior. 
 
 The most glaring irony here is that evangelicals are notorious for their negative views of Catholicism, and in particular the pope. Some evangelicals believe the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon described in the Book of Revelation. Those beliefs may be limited to a few denominations on the fringes, but it is absolutely the case that evangelicalism holds that Catholicism is doctrinally in error on several major points, including purgatory, prayers to saints, and its veneration of Mary. Indeed, the Liberty Counsel even responded to a few tweets from apparent evangelicals angry that the group would even mingle with the pontiff. 
 
 It’s certainly bemusing, then, to hear Davis talk about how humbled she was by Francis’s visit, and how encouraging it was to hear he was “on track” with her marriage crusade. It’s equally bemusing to hear Staver heap praise on Francis’s theological positions. 
 
 The Liberty Counsel’s intentions with Francis weren’t spiritual or religious. They were merely political. Everything about that meeting was calculated to further Staver’s anti-gay agenda. 
 
 Sadly, for Davis, Staver’s intentions with her also seem to be political. For all of his talk about how much his client loves Jesus, it’s tough to imagine Staver even thinks his client is a Christian. Staver is a Southern Baptist, and adheres to a statement of faith that is markedly different from the one Davis’s church believes. A big difference, and one that is an issue of orthodoxy for any Southern Baptist, is that Davis’s church doesn’t believe in the doctrine of the trinity. 
 
 At the end of the day, the Liberty Counsel is after political expediency. They play people, they use their clients like pawns to accomplish their agendas without so much as an afterthought about how they are hurting their clients’ lives. No one from the Liberty Counsel, for instance, spent six days in jail. Nor are any of them wanted by the FBI or Interpol. 
 
 True to form, the Liberty Counsel tried to play Francis. They knew that the Vatican, even if they wanted to, couldn’t throw Davis under the bus. First, Francis is a pastor, and he wouldn’t do that. Second, Francis already won himself the ire of plenty of American conservatives for what they consider to be his weak, not-loud-enough stance against homosexuality. Did Francis really want to risk driving those conservatives even further away from the church? It was as if the Liberty Counsel drove Francis into a corner, and dared him to call their bluff. 
 
 Unfortunately for the Liberty Counsel, he did. And he did it gloriously. 
 
 Remember how the Vatican’s official statement said Davis wasn’t a “real audience” for the pope because he only had one of those? 
 
 Well, that audience was with none other than Francis’s former student, who is gay, and his partner of 19 years. CNN broke the news in an exclusive interview with Yayo Grassi, the gay student. 
 
 While there’s no video took back up Davis’s story—which will no doubt change several more times, as it already has—there’s video of the Pope embracing his real audience. He knew both men were gay, and partnered. He didn’t use the moment to pray for their conversion to heterosexuality, or to give them a brochure on the ex-gay movement, or to lecture them on church teaching about sexuality. He welcomed them. He embraced them. He kissed them on the cheek. He smiled with them. 
 
 Is that meeting proof that Francis wants to change church teaching on homosexuality? No. But it is evidence of Pope Francis’s character—that in spite of his institution’s historical mistreatment of LGBT people, the judgment stops with him. 
 
 That’s who Pope Francis is. ||||| Pope Francis secretly met with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, during his visit to the U.S. (Reuters) 
 
 Two days after news of a Kim Davis-Pope Francis meeting renewed the U.S. fascination over what this pope stands for, the Vatican on Friday put out a statement that appeared to downgrade the visit’s significance, saying it should “not be considered a form of support” of the Kentucky clerk’s “position in all of its particular and complex aspects.” 
 
 Davis, an Apostolic Christian who went to jail rather than allow her office to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has become a polarizing figure in the country’s debate over religious freedom. 
 
 [New: Pope Francis reportedly met with a same-sex couple the day before he met with Kim Davis] 
 
 Since the revelation that she met with Francis — an event that was announced by her lawyer, not the Vatican, and kept secret until after the pope had returned to Rome — church insiders have been furiously swapping rumors about who exactly set up the meeting, which U.S. bishops knew of it, who was happy about it and who was upset. 
 
 The meeting was cheered by conservatives, who view Francis with suspicion because of previous statements that appeared to be accepting of homosexuality. But it was greeted with dismay by liberals, who have embraced Francis precisely because of his reluctance to engage in U.S. culture wars and his “who-am-I-to-judge” attitude. 
 
 Church leaders in the United States and in Rome have been resolutely tight-lipped about the meeting, perhaps concerned about the prospect of appearing to publicly rebuke or challenge the pope, particularly on such a sensitive issue. At the same time, church-watchers have debated and swapped rumors about who set up the meeting, whether it was at the behest of the pope himself, or whether it was an idea pushed by other bishops or religious freedom advocates or donors. 
 
 [Meet Yayo Grassi, the gay man who is friends with Pope Francis] 
 
 Among those who declined to comment was the Rev. Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, at whose residence the meeting took place. 
 
 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. 
 
 [Who is the Rev. Carlo Maria Viganò?] 
 
 A Vatican statement issued Friday by the Rev. Federico Lombardi, another papal spokesman, seemed aimed at quelling speculation about the meeting’s significance. 
 
 “The brief meeting between Mrs. Kim Davis and Pope Francis at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C. has continued to provoke comments and discussion,” the statement said. “…The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis, and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.” 
 
 Rosica tweeted out two separate stories Friday about Lombardi’s statement, each of which said it made clear the papal visit was not a validation of Davis’s actions. 
 
 Vatican distances Pope Francis from Kentucky clerk Kim Davis http://t.co/paCNrNOR8v — Thomas Rosica (@FatherRosica) October 2, 2015 
 
 In response to the Vatican statements, Mat Staver, a lawyer for Davis and founder of the conservative group Liberty Counsel, offered a bit of detail on how the meeting came together, saying the the invitation to meet with Francis was “first conveyed” on Sept. 14, the day that Davis returned to work. 
 
 “Neither Kim Davis nor Liberty Counsel ever said the meeting was an endorsement of her legal case,” Staver said in a statement. “Rather, the meeting was a pastoral meeting to encourage Kim Davis in which Pope Francis thanked her for her courage and told her to ‘Stay strong,’” 
 
 Staver said Vatican security picked up Davis and her husband from their hotel and took them to the Vatican embassy for the meeting last Thursday. 
 
 [Opinion: I’m gay and Catholic and don’t care about Pope-Davis meeting] 
 
 While some religious-freedom advocates applaud Davis’s refusal to adhere to a Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage across the land, others say Davis — an elected official — could have followed her conscience and U.S. law by stepping aside and allowing others in her office to issue the licenses. 
 
 Some individuals who are close to senior U.S. bishops — who as a group have made the religious freedom campaign their top priority — assert that many bishops didn’t know in advance of the Davis-Francis meeting and were upset about it. Others said the bishops were divided on the Davis case, and some may have been aware of the meeting ahead of time. 
 
 All week, one bishop after another declined to speak on the record about the meeting. Among them were Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Washington archbishop; Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput; and Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. 
 
 Kurtz — the bishop who is based in Kentucky, where the Davis case is unfolding — gave an interview in September that appeared to support her. 
 
 “I believe we as a nation are at our best when we can honor religious liberty,” Kurtz told Louisville television station WHAS-11. “I’d love if legitimately there was a way to let a public official to serve in a way that doesn’t compromise their religious beliefs.” 
 
 Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who focuses on religious liberty, said advocates have different perspectives on the legal issues at hand. Some may focus more on faith-based nonprofits, others on individual rights and others on government employees like Davis. There are different opinions and strategies among conservatives worried about the topic, he noted. 
 
 “The big problem we’ve seen with the Kim Davis situation is that these distinctions have been lost,” Anderson said. 
 
 Pope Francis this weekend is launching a major month-long meeting with top bishops on family issues. The meeting — called a synod — is expected to be contentious, as the pope hears various views about how to support and bring closer to the church people who wind up estranged because they have divorced and remarried outside the church or because they are gay. Conservatives are concerned that Francis is about to loosen rules, and some have speculated this week that whoever arranged the Davis meeting might have done so in order to weaken the pope ahead of the synod. 
 
 But Anderson was skeptical about the importance of the Davis meeting to the overall issue of religious freedom. 
 
 “My general sense is that papal visits don’t have a big impact on politics,” he said. “I think politics is driven more by underlying factors, such as interest groups and money — not news.” 
 
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 What’s an Apostolic Christian and why is Kim Davis’s hair so long? 
 
 The first pope to address Congress isn’t new to politics 
 
 Who is the Rev. Carlo Maria Viganò? ||||| NewsCatholic Church 
 
 ROME, August 31, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Less than a week after publishing his extraordinary 11-page testimony implicating Pope Francis and several senior prelates in a cover-up of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse of priests and seminarians, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has now decided to reveal, for the first time, the details surrounding Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis during his visit to the United States in 2015. 
 
 In a written statement, dated August 30, 2018 (see the Italian and English texts below), Archbishop Viganò, who served as papal nuncio to the United States from 2011-2016, says he was prompted to speak out after reading an August 28, 2018 New York Times article, in which Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean sexual abuse victim, says the Pope “recently told him Archbishop Viganò nearly sabotaged the visit by inviting the critic, Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who became a conservative cause célèbre when she refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.” 
 
 Davis was jailed for five days, in 2015, for defying a court order to grant marriage licenses, on the grounds that she had personal religious objections to same-sex “marriage.” 
 
 According to the New York Times report, the Pope allegedly told Cruz: “I didn’t know who that woman was, and [Archbishop Viganò] snuck her in to say hello to me — and of course they made a whole publicity out of it.” 
 
 “I was horrified and I fired that nuncio,” Cruz recalled the Pope saying. 
 
 Catholic and secular media soon picked up on the New York Times story, with headlines such as: “I fired that nuncio” over Kim Davis meeting, Pope Francis reportedly said of Archbishop Viganò; and Kentucky’s Kim Davis might have played a role in Vatican infighting. 
 
 In the introduction to his three-page statement, Archbishop Viganò writes: “Faced with the Pope’s reported statement, I feel obliged to recount the events as they really unfolded.” 
 
 Viganò goes on to detail how the Pope’s private meeting with Kim Davis at the Washington nunciature was organized, what senior Vatican officials were involved in the decision making, and why they thought the meeting would be significant. He also reveals what happened once Pope Francis returned to Rome, and the “avalanche of phone calls, faxes and emails” started to roll in to the nunciature in Washington and the Vatican Press Office. 
 
 Readers will recall that news of Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis broke out after his return from the U.S. to Rome, and quickly became a heated controversy. Davis’ lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, initially disclosed the news on Tuesday, September 29. He said the “private meeting” lasted around 15 minutes and took place in a “separate room” to keep it secret, adding that the Vatican official who arranged the meeting insisted that it not be made public until after Francis returned to Rome. 
 
 According to Staver, the Pope said he wanted to “thank [Kim Davis] for her courage,” told her to “stay strong,” and gave her two rosaries. He described the meeting as very “cordial” and “warm,” with Pope Francis and Davis promising to pray for one another. 
 
 But Vatican officials initially declined to comment. They finally acknowledged the meeting on Wednesday, September 30, but downplayed it as brief and part of a larger group. 
 
 Two days later, on Friday, October 2, then-Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement, saying that a “brief meeting” did occur but that it “should not be considered a form of support of [Davis’] position in all of its particular and complex aspects.” 
 
 Lombardi noted that the “only real audience” Pope Francis granted at the Nunciature in Washington was with one of his former students, Yayo Grassi, an openly gay Argentine who was accompanied by his male partner, Iwan Bagus, and several friends. 
 
 Headlines of the private audience with Grassi and his partner flew across major media outlets, with the Guardian heralding: “Vatican: Pope’s only ‘audience’ was with gay former student – not Kim Davis,” and the New York Times announcing, “Before Pope Francis Met Kim Davis, He Met With Gay Ex-Student.” 
 
 Fr. Thomas Rosica — a Canadian priest who was acting as an English attachè for the Vatican Press Office, and came to be known during the Synod on the Family for his overemphasis on homosexual issues at the daily press briefings — told the LA Times that Fr. Lombardi had met with Pope Francis on Friday morning before issuing the statement. 
 
 Rosica distanced Pope Francis from Kim Davis, saying they met in a group, and that it amounted to little more than a “very brief” handshake. 
 
 “In terms of why this person was invited, you’d have to ask those questions of the nunciature,” he said. 
 
 Rosica said that he couldn’t imagine that Davis spent 15 minutes in a private meeting with Francis at the nunciature in Washington. “I have difficulty believing 15 minutes was spent with one individual, because there simply wasn’t time,” he said. 
 
 He insisted the meeting was organized by the nuncio, i.e. Viganò — and not Rome — and said he found it unlikely that the Pope knew anything about it beforehand: “Was there an opportunity to brief the Pope on this beforehand? I don’t think so. A list is given — these are the people you are going to meet,” he said. 
 
 But Davis’ lawyer told the Associated Press that the Vatican initiated the meeting as an affirmation of her right to be a conscientious objector. 
 
 As described in more detail below, Archbishop Viganò, who as papal ambassador played a key role in organizing the 2015 papal visit to the United States, insists that he did speak with Pope Francis about the details of the Kim Davis case — and he provides documentation to prove it. 
 
 He says he handed Pope Francis a one-page memo (included below in Italian and English) summarizing the Kim Davis case. In the memo, Viganò informs the Pope that Davis was “unjustly arrested and put in prison” for refusing to sign “marriage licenses for same-sex couples,” on the grounds that “her conscience does not permit her to become a participant in this new way of understanding marriage.” 
 
 “Hers is the first case in which an American citizen has been imprisoned for reasons of freedom of conscience and religious liberty even though these rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America,” he wrote in the memo. 
 
 Viganò also details his subsequent consultation that night, at Pope Francis’ request, with top Vatican officials about the advisability of a potential meeting, and describes the private meeting between the Pope and Kim Davis the following day. 
 
 Finally, the former U.S. Nuncio recalls the “frantic” telephone call he received from Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, once the media firestorm began, and his subsequent and surprising meeting with the Pope. 
 
 Here below is the official English text of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s statement on Pope Francis private meeting with Kim Davis and what really happened. The English text may also be accessed in pdf form here, while a pdf of the Italian original may be read here. Emphasis not added. 
 
 [This article was updated at 1:00 p.m. EST, on September 2, 2018] 
 
 *** 
 
 Pope Francis met privately with Kim Davis: here is what really happened 
 
 by 
 
 His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò 
 
 Titular Archbishop of di Ulpiana 
 
 Apostolic Nuncio 
 
 On August 28, 2018, the New York Times reported part of a conversation that Juan Carlos Cruz, the most well known Chilean sexual abuse victim of Father Karadima and Bishop Barros, allegedly had with Pope Francis. Inexplicably, in his conversation with Cruz, the Pope is said to have spoken about his meeting with Kim Davis during his visit to Washington on September 24, 2015, and to have said that he knew nothing about the case before the meeting. 
 
 Faced with the Pope’s reported statement, I feel obliged to recount the events as they really unfolded. 
 
 At the end of the dinner, at the Nunciature in Washington, on the evening of September 23, 2015, I told the Pope that I needed him to grant me a half hour, because I wished to bring to his attention, and possible approval, a delicate and easily achievable initiative; that is, to meet personally and in a completely confidential way, out of the media spotlight, with Kim Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, the first American citizen condemned and imprisoned for one week for having exercised her right to conscientious objection. 
 
 At the beginning of our meeting, on the evening of September 23, I gave the Pope a one-page memo summarizing the Davis case (here attached in Italian and English). The Pope immediately appeared in favor of such an initiative, but added that the meeting would have political implications, and said, “I don’t understand these things, so it would be good for you to hear Cardinal Parolin’s opinion.” 
 
 It was already 9:30 in the evening, so I went in person with two of the counselors of the Nunciature (an Italian and a Lithuanian) to the hotel not far away, where the Pope’s entourage was being hosted. Since I had called ahead to give advance notice of my arrival, His Excellency Archbishop Angelo Becciu (Substitute of the Secretary of State) and His Excellency Archbishop Paul Gallagher (Secretary for Relations with States, and Head of the Political Section of the Secretariat of State) were waiting for me in the hotel lobby. They immediately notified me that Cardinal Parolin had already retired to his room, and they did not consider it appropriate to disturb him, since they could easily make him aware of our meeting the following morning. 
 
 We then met in a small lounge of the hotel. As I said, there were five of us. I gave them the same memo that I had given to the Pope, setting forth its content and explaining the reason for my visit, which had been requested by the Pope. After considering the case, Archbishop Becciu was immediately in favor of the Pope receiving Davis privately before he left Washington for New York. 
 
 Archbishop Gallagher, while showing support for the idea given the importance of defending the right to conscientious objection, said that it was appropriate to verify from the point of view of common law whether there were any reasons that would render the meeting inadvisable; namely, whether the legal proceedings brought against Davis were concluded or were still open. I therefore had him speak by telephone with the canonist for the Nunciature, who before becoming a priest had been a judge in the American military courts and a professor of canon law. After the conversation with the canonist to clarify matters — he said there were no procedural obstacles — Bishop Gallagher gave an unconditionally favorable opinion that the Pope should receive Davis. 
 
 The following morning, after the Mass that the Pope concelebrated with us in the Nunciature, I informed the Pope of the positive opinion of his two principal collaborators, who had then told Cardinal Parolin about our meeting. The Pope then gave his consent, and I organized to have Davis come to the Nunciature without anyone noticing, by having her sit in a separate room. Everything was made much easier by the fact that Davis was already in Washington, where she was invited to receive a Cost of Discipleship Award from the Family Research Council. 
 
 Before the meeting took place, I alerted the photographer from L’Osservatore Romano that he should not release the photographs of the meeting without the permission of his superiors. He of course observed the orders, but took many photographs, which have never been published, and are currently kept in the photographic archive of L’Osservatore Romano. I also had Davis promise me in advance that she would not give any news to the media until after the Pope’s return to Rome, at the end of his pastoral visit to the USA. Davis faithfully kept her promise. 
 
 Early in the afternoon of September 24, before leaving for New York City, the Pope entered as planned into the sitting room where Davis and her husband were waiting for him. He embraced her affectionately, thanked her for her courage, and invited her to persevere. Davis was very moved and started crying. She was then taken back to her hotel in a car driven by a pontifical gendarme, accompanied by an American Monsignor and staff member of the Nunciature. 
 
 Once the Pope returned to Rome from Philadelphia after the World Meeting with the Families, the news of his meeting with Davis broke out in the media. An avalanche of phone calls, faxes and emails arrived at the Nunciature in Washington and the Vatican Press Office, many with insults and protests, but also many in favor of the Pope’s meeting with Davis. In an article of September 30, 2015, the New York Times reported that “Vatican officials initially would not confirm that the meeting occurred, finally doing so on Wednesday afternoon, while refusing to discuss any details.” The Vatican Press Office then issued a statement — without their superiors in the Secretariat of State ever consulting me — stating that the Pope had never received Davis in a private audience, and that at most he may have greeted her among many other people before departing for New York. Father Rosica and Father Lombardi increased added to the lies, and were quoted as follows in the October 2, 2015 edition of the New York Times: “But the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said on Friday that the office of Archbishop Viganò had extended the invitation to Ms. Davis and that the Pope was probably not briefed about her case. And the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the chief Vatican spokesman, depicted the meeting as one meet-and-greet among many.” This is the transparency of the Holy See under Pope Francis! 
 
 The next morning, at about 6:00 a.m. in Washington — I remember it well because I had just entered the chapel at the Nunciature — I received a frantic telephone call from Cardinal Parolin, who told me “You must come immediately to Rome because the Pope is furious with you!” I left as soon as possible and was received by the Pope at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, around 7 o’clock in the evening on October 9, at the conclusion of one of the afternoon sessions of the Second Synod on the Family. 
 
 The Pope received me for almost an hour, and was very affectionate and paternal. He immediately apologized to me for troubling me with coming to Rome, and he lavished continuous praise on me for the way I had organized his visit to the USA, and for the incredible reception he received in America. He never expected such a welcome. 
 
 To my great surprise, during this long meeting, the Pope did not mention even once the audience with Davis! 
 
 As soon as my audience with the Pope was over, I immediately phoned Cardinal Parolin, and said to him, “The Pope was so good with me. Not a word of reproach, only praise for the success of his visit to the USA.” At which point Cardinal Parolin replied, “It’s not possible, because with me he was furious about you.” 
 
 This is a summary of the events. 
 
 As mentioned at the beginning, on August 28, 2018, the New York Times reported an interview with Juan Carlos Cruz, in which Cruz reported that during his meeting with the Pope, in April 2018, the Pope told him about the Davis case. According to Cruz, the Pope said: “I did not know who the woman was and he [Msgr. Viganò] snuck her in to say hello to me — and of course they made a whole publicity out of it. And I was horrified and I fired that Nuncio.” 
 
 One of them is lying: either Cruz or the Pope? What is certain is that the Pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close collaborators had approved the private audience. Journalists can always check, by asking the prelates Becciu, Gallagher and Parolin, as well as the Pope himself. 
 
 It is clear, however, that Pope Francis wanted to conceal the private audience with the first American citizen condemned and imprisoned for conscientious objection. 
 
 + Carlo Maria Viganò 
 
 Titular Archbishop di Ulpiana 
 
 Apostolic Nuncio 
 
 August 30, 2018 
 
 Feast of Saint Jeanne Jugan and Blessed Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster 
 
 Official translation by Diane Montagna 
 
 Here below is the text of the one-page memo summarizing the Davis case which Archbishop Viganò gave to Pope Francis at the beginning of their meeting on September 23, 2015. (Download the original Italian here, and a PDF of the English translation here.) 
 
 9. Mrs. KIM DAVIS, 
 
 As noted, the United States Supreme Court recently decided that “marriage” between persons of the same sex are a right by law, in all of the States of the U.S.A, radically changing the concept of marriage, as well as its very definition. 
 
 Mrs. Kim Davis, who was elected an Official of her County, in Kentucky, has refused to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, stating that her conscience does not permit her to become a participant in this new way of understanding marriage. Mrs. Davis, who belongs to a charismatic Christian church, several years ago had a personal conversion and wants to reamin faithful to her conscience, following “the Law of God rather than the law of man.” She has been careful not to impose her religious beliefs on others, while they have sought to impose on her these new “beliefs” about marriage. For this she was unjustly arrested and put in prison. 
 
 Hers is the first case in which an American citizen has been imprisoned for reasons of freedom of conscience and religious liberty even though these rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. 
 
 Mrs. Davis is a humble person who has not sought publicity for her case, but she has become an exemplary witness to freedom of conscience and religion for the entire country. 
 
 News of the meeting of Mrs. Davis with the Holy Father has remained secret until now.
– A Vatican official says there is now "a sense of regret" that Pope Francis ever met Kim Davis, reports Reuters—and that could be bad news for the archbishop who set up the meeting. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican's ambassador to the US, was appointed by Benedict XVI and is known for his hardline stance against same-sex marriage, the Washington Post reports. Vatican officials say Francis wasn't briefed on the Davis case and the meeting "should not be considered a form of support," which has left church insiders wondering whether Vigano deliberately blindsided Francis or merely underestimated just how controversial the meeting would turn out to be, the New York Times reports. A Vatican source tells CBS 2 that Francis was "exploited" by those with their own agendas and the meeting should never have happened. Davis' lawyer, who first announced the meeting, tells the Times that it was set up by Vigano—whom he met at an anti-gay marriage rally in Washington, DC, earlier this year—but they were "led to believe that the invitation did come directly from Pope Francis." The lawyer says the Vatican's description of the meeting as a very brief one among dozens is "absolute nonsense" and "somebody is trying to throw some people under the bus." Bishops are required to ask for permission to resign when they turn 75, and it seems likely that Vigano's will be accepted when he reaches that age in January, the Times notes. (Francis met a gay couple the day before the Davis meeting.)