Pope Francis is reported to have taken time during his recent US visit to pray alongside a woman who has been refusing to issue marriage certificates to gay couples.
Kim Davis was imprisoned earlier this month for denying the marriage certificates to gay couples, after the US Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal in the US.
Her attorney released a statement yesterday saying the Vatican had reached out to Kim during his visit, and they subsequently met and prayed together in Washington DC.
The statement quotes Kim saying: “I was humbled to meet Pope Francis. Of all people, why me? I never thought I would meet the Pope. Who am I to have this rare opportunity? I am just a County Clerk who loves Jesus and desires with all my heart to serve him.
“Pope Francis was kind, genuinely caring, and very personable. He even asked me to pray for him. Pope Francis thanked me for my courage and told me to ‘stay strong’.
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“I’m just a nobody, so it was really humbling to think he would want to meet or know me.” Davis said the meeting was arranged after she received a phone call from a church official.
She said Pope Francis gave her and her husband rosaries, which Davis gave to her Catholic parents.
“I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Davis told ABC. “And he said, ‘thank you for your courage.'”
Speaking with reporters on board the Papal plane to Rome, Pope Francis told Terry Moran of ABC News that conscientious objection is a human right, even for government officials: “Conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.
