Two Vatican media advisers have disputed Archbishop Carlo Mario Viganò’s account of Pope Francis’ response to his controversial meeting with Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to grant same-sex marriage licences.
Fr Federico Lombardi, the former Director of the Holy See Press Office, and Fr Tom Rosica, his English language aide, have contradicted the former papal ambassador to Washington’s claim made to Lifesite news that the Pope never reproached Viganò over the Ms Davis meeting.
But Fr Rosica has now produced notes from a 9 October 2015 meeting between him, Fr Lombardi and Archbishop Viganò about the diplomat’s private audience with Francis.
“The Holy Father in his paternal benevolence thanked me for his visit to the USA but also said that I had deceived him in bringing that woman to the nunciature,” Archbishop Vigano is noted as saying.
“The Pope told me: You never told me that she had four husbands.”
Fr Rosica’s notes have been confirmed as reliable by Fr Lombardi and constitute the first Vatican comment challenging the credibility of Archbishop Vigano’s evidence. It comes after the retired papal diplomat issued an extraordinary 11-page document calling for the Pope to resign for his handling of sexual misconduct allegations against a former cardinal, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.
The meeting between Fr Lombardi and Fr Rosica took place with Archbishop Viganò after the ambassador had been summoned to Rome to meet with the Pope over the fallout following the Ms Davis meeting.
Francis’ brief encounter with the county clerk sparked a media firestorm and threatened to embroil the papacy in the United States’ bitter culture wars. While conservatives saw the meeting as a papal stamp of approval for Ms Davis’ stance, the Vatican was quick to say it was not an endorsement.
According to his version of events, Archbishop Viganò says Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary State, called him on 3 October 2015: “You must come immediately to Rome because the Pope is furious with you!”
The archbishop says he came as soon as possible and met with Francis on the evening of the 9 October. But, as he explains in his Lifesite new statement, “to my great surprise, during this long meeting, the Pope did not mention even once the audience with Davis!”
Archbishop Vigano says he released his account following reported comments by the Pope about the 24 September 2015 meeting with Ms Davis.
Chilean abuse sexual survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz, recalled the Pope told him that Archbishop Viganò had “snuck in” Davis to the apostolic nunciature in Washington and that Francis didn’t know who she was.
“I was horrified, and I fired that nuncio,” Cruz recalled the Pope telling him.
Archbishop Viganò also disputes claims that the Pope and the Vatican were not aware of who Ms Davis was. The diplomat explains that on the 23 September 2015, after dinner at the apostolic nunciature, he proposed to Francis that he meet privately with Ms Davis as she was the “first American citizen condemned and imprisoned for one week for having exercised her right to conscientious objection.”
Francis suggest he speak to Cardinal Parolin but when the archbishop arrived at the hotel where the papal party was staying the cardinal had gone to bed. He says he cleared a meeting with two other senior Vatican officials: Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, then the “sostituto” of the Secretariat of State, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States.
But during their 9 October meeting Archbishop Viganò refused to answer Fr Rosica’s question on whether he had first had the meeting with Ms Davis approved by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, the President of the US bishops’ conference.
Fr Rosica also said he informed Archbishop Viganò that a journalist had a recording of an official from the nunciature in Washington telephoning Ms Davis in her hotel the evening before meeting with the Pope that: “a vehicle will pick you and your lawyer up at the hotel tomorrow morning and bring you to the nunciature. Change your hairstyle so people will not recognise you so quickly."
In the new statement, Fr Lombardi says that as a papal ambassador, Archbishop Viganò “should have known better about this situation” with Ms Davis and the potential fallout and that “the Pope and his collaborators” had not been given time to “realise the significance of this meeting.”
While the archbishop says he told Ms Davis not to make the meeting public until after the Pope had returned to Rome, Fr Lombardi also wonders whether the encounter would have taken place at all had this arrangement been set out to Francis and his closest advisers.
So far the Pope and the Vatican have offered no comment on Archbishop Viganò’s separate claims against Francis which includes allegations the Pope was informed of Archbishop McCarrick’s abusive behaviour with seminarians.
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