* Meeting with Kim Davis has become highly controversial in
U.S.
* Meeting was kept secret for nearly a week
* Vatican hope controversy will not overshadow whole U.S.
trip
(Adds quote from Davis lawyer)
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Pope Francis' meeting last
week with an American woman at the centre of a row over gay
marriage was not something he had sought and should not be seen
as an endorsement of her views, the Vatican said on Friday.
One Vatican official said there was "a sense of regret" that
the pope had ever seen Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who
went to jail in September for refusing to honour a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling and issue same-sex marriage licences.
The encounter in Washington was originally kept secret and
has sparked widespread debate since it became public this week,
proving something of a misstep for the pontiff.
Looking to smother the fierce controversy, Vatican spokesman
Federico Lombardi said Davis was one of "several dozen" people
who had been invited by the Vatican ambassador to see Francis
during his visit to the U.S. capital.
"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," Lombardi said in a statement.
"The only real audience granted by the Pope at the
Nunciature (Vatican embassy) was with one of his former students
and his family," the statement said.
The meeting with Davis disappointed many liberal Catholics
but delighted conservatives, who saw it as a sign that the pope
was clearly condemning a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to
legalize same-sex marriage. ID:nL1N1200BB
Davis said on Wednesday that the pope had thanked her for
her courage and told her to "stay strong", adding that knowing
that he agreed with what she was doing "kind of validates
everything".
While Lombardi declined to take questions on the incident,
his assistant, Canadian priest Father Tom Rosica, laid the blame
on the Vatican embassy in Washington, saying it had
underestimated the impact of Davis's presence at the reception.
EMBASSY UNDERESTIMATED SIGNIFICANCE
"I'm not sure that they (the embassy) realised how
significant it would be," he told reporters.
Rosica said he did not believe the pope was even indirectly
involved in inviting Davis, adding that the greeting was very
brief and that she and her husband were among the many guests at
the Washington embassy before the pope left for New York.
Rosica said he did not know if there had been a private
meeting. Davis' lawyer, Mat Staver, said the couple were not in
a line, that the meeting was private and seen only by Vatican
personnel and security.
"Had Kim Davis been in a line of people or been seen by
anyone outside of Vatican personnel, we would not have been able
to keep her visit secret," he said in a statement.
Rosica said the pope was most likely not fully aware of how
controversial a figure Davis had become.
"I would simply say her case is a very complex case. It has
all kinds of intricacies. Was there an opportunity to brief the
pope on this beforehand? I don't think so. Was an in depth
process done? No, probably not," Rosica said.
Asked if the pope had been set up intentionally by someone
in the embassy, Rosica said: "No, reading all of the
information, listening to all of the facts, these things
happen."
Rosica said he also doubted that the Davis and her husband
spent 15 minutes with the pope, as her lawyer had reported,
saying "there simply was not enough time".
Davis has said her beliefs as an Apostolic Christian prevent
her from issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples. Her
church belongs to a Protestant movement known as Apostolic
Pentecostalism.
Rosica said he hoped the Davis incident and its aftermath
would not distract from the significance of the U.S. trip.
"The visit was extraordinary ... so to allow this to kind of
overshadow it would be very unfortunate. This is not the
centrepiece of the papal visit. This is one small part of it,
but it is a loaded centrepiece."