Vatican Source: Pope Blindsided By Meeting With Controversial Kentucky Clerk

(CBS) — Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich is on his way to Rome tonight. Before he left, he spoke out for the first time on that controversial meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Cupich in essence told CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine not to read too much into it.

The Vatican has since tried to distance Pope Francis from Davis. Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the pope’s meeting with Davis was not an endorsement of her decision to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

“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,” he said.

Lombardi said the Vatican wanted to “clarify” what happened “in order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.”

“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. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family,” he said.

CBS News has confirmed that former student was Yayo Grassi, an openly gay Argentine, who visited Pope Francis with his longtime partner and some friends.

“Mr. Yayo Grassi, a former Argentine student of Pope Francis, who had already met other times in the past with the Pope, asked to present his mother and several friends to the Pope during the Pope’s stay......

Bookmarked for later. Thanks for the ping, Onyx.

As I’ve said on another thread, here...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3343917/posts?page=50

... “I’m not going to level attacks on the current pope because I don’t know what he believes. Right now I don’t think anyone knows for sure what the pope believes outside of his closest circles. That is not good for anyone who cares about biblical truth, whether inside or outside of the Roman Catholic Church. Uncertain trumpets do not mobilize forces; on the contrary, they invite attack from enemies who are always probing for weaknesses and opportunities. Whatever Pope Francis does or does not believe, he’s permitting a perception not only to take root but also to blossom that says the Pope wants to be more loving and more gentle, not only to sinners who fail to obey church teaching but also to people who disagree with church teaching. The first might or might not be a good thing. Pastoral wisdom requires telling the difference between a repentant sinner and an obstinate evildoer, and that is not always easy to know. The second — tolerating those who want to tear down the church from the inside — is always wrong.”

My guess, for whatever it's worth, is that we're seeing a very new pope who has not spent a large amount of time in Rome or one of the other major power centers of the church, and who has not yet appointed his own people to key positions.

As a result, he has to trust those under him to make decisions which reflect his views. Sometimes mistakes happen. Sometimes “mistakes” are made deliberately by people who want to influence their superiors or those outside the leadership.

In the political and corporate world, new CEOs and new governors and new presidents often have this problem. The history of ecclesiastical organizations show they are not immune to the same issues.

I think we'll know more in time as we see who gets punished or promoted following this incident. But since the Roman Catholic Church is not a democracy and does not have to answer to constituents, that time may be a long time coming.

I do think the Pope is going to discover, if he has not already done so, that the world of the Vatican is not the same as the world of Peronist or post-Peronist Argentina. Pope Francis seems to have filled the pastoral role of a bishop in Argentina, bringing a message of mercy to a country where military strongmen have ruled for a very long time and often without much mercy. He made it possible to say, “there are two sides to this issue, and we cannot demonize the other side.”

That message may well have been needed in Argentina. One thing you **CANNOT** do without consequences in a Roman Catholic country is to persecute the senior clergy, and giving protection to political dissenters may have been the right role for an Argentine bishop.

Pope Benedict is now the one making the decisions, not merely the one trying to influence those in decisionmaking positions to have mercy. Time will tell how well he learns to handle the levers of power now that he's actually pulling them, not merely trying to convince a secular ruler to use them well.

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