September 30, 2015, Wednesday — Further Thoughts

By Robert Moynihan
InsideVatican
September 30, 2015

http://insidethevatican.com/

As I write this, a man in an Oklahoma prison is about to be executed for a murder he claims he did not commit.

Pope Francis has asked for his life to be spared.

His name is Richard Glossip. ...

We live in a real world, with real problems, and in a fallen world, where egoism and cruelty have led to injustice and violence since the killing of Abel by his brother Cain.

And I write this to set into context the story of the very private meeting of Pope Francis with Kim Davis, which occurred on Thursday afternoon, September 24 -- the afternoon of the Pope's address to Congress.

There has been a storm of media attention regarding this encounter since I broke the story yesterday evening. "Why did the Pope wish to see Kim Davis, of all people?" many asked on websites across the internet.

The answer, I think, is this.

Amid all of his many and well-publicized gestures of affection, respect and tenderness during his trip -- kissing children, caressing the sick and handicapped, blessing prisoners in a Philadelphia jail -- gestures of tenderness which Father Jonathan Morris, when I was with him on Fox News during the Pope's final Mass in Philadelphia, called the single most striking thing about the entire trip, Pope Francis also wished to offer a very private, intimate gesture of respect and tenderness to a woman who has been widely vilified and has suffered imprisonment due to her fidelity to her personal religious convictions with regard to marriage.

At first, many doubted that this story was even true. "Never happened," many said, in web postings and in emails to me.

Of course the story is true.

The encounter did occur.

Why did the Vatican keep the meeting private? How was it even possible that it occurred, amid the scrutiny of the Pope's every move by thousands of journalists 24/7? And, again, why Kim Davis?