Pope: I don't support homophobic civic layabout Kim Davis

Kim Davis, the bigot who won't issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, said she had a 15-minute audience with the Pope, who told her to stay strong.

The Pope, on the other hand, says that she was part of a group of several dozen people to whom he was introduced at the Vatican Embassy, and that he said nothing of the kind (he later told reporters that conscientious objection on religious grounds was a human right).

The Vatican bureaucracy is stuffed full of reactionary bigots who spent decades covering up for child rapists in their midst, and the American Catholic hierarchy is particularly notorious. In Esquire, Charles Pierce tells the inside story of the visit and the audience, suggesting that the Pope was set up by Ratzingerite clerics who wanted to use him in the political debate over Kim Davis.

…A Vatican spokesman said the details of her situation were not discussed.

The Rev Federico Lombardi said the Pope met "several dozen" people at the Vatican's embassy in Washington just before leaving for New York last week.

"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," Rev Lombardi said.

Pope's meeting with Kim Davis not an endorsement – Vatican
[BBC]