...as Tengrain always says, laughed so hard she farted.
Curiouser and curiouser how the tale of the pontifical embrace of Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis (famous for her belief that her Trinity-denying Apostolic Pentecostal faith entitles her to collect an $80K salary while refusing to perform some the job's central duties) develops.
Yesterday Mr. Pierce came out with a horrifying construction of a story about how Pope Francis might have been ratfucked by Vatican conservatives into appearing to take a position on Ms. Davis when he hadn't in fact thought about the issue at all (and certainly wouldn't have wished to endorse in that form if he had thought about it):
If you'll recall, the week before the papal visit the US conservative community led by religious freedom advocate Jonah Goldberg was all up in arms over the possibility that our socialist Muslim president and his minions were planning to humiliate the Holy Father by plunging him into a kind of mosh pit atmosphere where he'd be confronted by gay Protestant clergy, abortion advocates, and transgender persons no doubt in provocative attire.
Which didn't, of course, happen at all, and there's no evidence that Pope Francis was even aware whether there were any such people present among the 14,000 people in the crowd. (Were there? I have no idea.) But conservatives in the Catholic hierarchy and grifters in the US anti-abortion movement really did engage in a conspiracy to draw the Pope into a controversy he knew nothing about and making him seem to support these jerks. They treated him with appalling disrespect; they succeeded in embarrassing him.
Let's see if the National Review denounces them for it.
Update:
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| This didn't happen. Who wanted us to believe it did? Image from Funny or Die via Advocate. |
Yesterday Mr. Pierce came out with a horrifying construction of a story about how Pope Francis might have been ratfucked by Vatican conservatives into appearing to take a position on Ms. Davis when he hadn't in fact thought about the issue at all (and certainly wouldn't have wished to endorse in that form if he had thought about it):
I'd shuffle her through the process and she gets some vague words of encouragement from the pope, who otherwise doesn't know her from any other hick who gets sent his way. I'd sit on the news for the entire rest of the pope's trip, even enlisting Davis's publicity-hungry legal team in that effort.
However, as the pope is preparing to go wheels-up in Philadelphia, I'd get the word to a reporter – say, Terry Moran of ABC. On the plane ride home, Moran would ask the pope a vague question about "religious liberty," without mentioning Davis's name, which seems a curious omission for a veteran journalist to make. The pope again would give a fairly anodyne answer about freedom of conscience with which nobody can disagree. Then, with the pope safely back in Rome, I'd leak the news to a conservative Catholic website and wait for the inevitable explosion.Today a tight-lipped Vatican statement suggests that's exactly what happened:
Ms. Davis — the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who defied a judge’s order and refused to grant a marriage licenses to same-sex couples — was among the guests ushered into the Vatican’s embassy for a brief meeting with him, the Vatican 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,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said in a statement released on Friday morning.
.@KathaPollitt Not my liberal hero, but everything else her lawyer says turns out to be a lie so I'm reserving judgment. Peruvian rallies?
— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 30, 2015
And as I was suspecting, Davis and her lawyer were lying again:Davis told ABC News that, while only lasting 15 minutes, her meeting with the pope — which included just herself, her husband, and a few Vatican attendants — culminated with hand-holding, embraces, and a statement of gratitude from the pope for her alleged courage... (Advocate)Not really—
"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."The truly funny thing to me is this:
If you'll recall, the week before the papal visit the US conservative community led by religious freedom advocate Jonah Goldberg was all up in arms over the possibility that our socialist Muslim president and his minions were planning to humiliate the Holy Father by plunging him into a kind of mosh pit atmosphere where he'd be confronted by gay Protestant clergy, abortion advocates, and transgender persons no doubt in provocative attire.
Which didn't, of course, happen at all, and there's no evidence that Pope Francis was even aware whether there were any such people present among the 14,000 people in the crowd. (Were there? I have no idea.) But conservatives in the Catholic hierarchy and grifters in the US anti-abortion movement really did engage in a conspiracy to draw the Pope into a controversy he knew nothing about and making him seem to support these jerks. They treated him with appalling disrespect; they succeeded in embarrassing him.
Let's see if the National Review denounces them for it.
Update:
CBS News has confirmed that former student [who got the only full-scale audience] was Yayo Grassi, an openly gay Argentine, who visited Pope Francis with his longtime partner and some friends.
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