Kim Davis steals Pope Francis’s afterglow

The Vatican has confirmed what media organizations had already sniffed out: Controversial Kentucky clerk Kim Davis privately met with Pope Francis while was in Washington last week.

All of the media hullabaloo about the meeting makes one thing clear: Davis, who defied a judge by refusing to issue same sex marriage licenses, is focused on bettering her own lot in life, not on deepening her faith and understanding the lessons of charity, hope and love.

{mosads}She’s forced the Vatican to confirm what it thought was a private meeting with the briefly jailed Rowan County, Ky., employee. After an initial nondenial denial statement from the Vatican after Davis’s press release Wednesday, the Holy See came out this morning with this: “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.”

Davis should have known known to zip her lip. As should her lawyers. Just last week, Liberty Counsel, the firm which represents Davis, had to retract a picture alleging that a massive crowd met in Peru to pray for her. Turns out, maybe a few people did. But there are no pictures.

We have her lawyers to thank for thrusting her visit with the Holy Father in everyone’s faces, trying to turn attention to her political cause (and helping her continue to raise her profile for what we know will be a book deal).

Others to blame? The media operatives involved in making the meeting happen in the first place. And that includes those in the Vatican who thought that courting this kind of controversy, after an amazingly joyous visit, was a good idea.

Her camp knew that by broadcasting her encounter to the world, the media furor would catapult her to the elite echelons of press prominence. Link yourself with a man who received a week’s worth of unprecedented positive media attention and, bingo, her politically charged lawbreaking becomes a blessed event.

In the press release, Liberty Counsel reported that the pope told her to have courage. What she didn’t understand is that courage doesn’t mean having bravura to boast and broadcast her plight. It requires a quiet firmness of purpose in face of perceived adversity. To quote a popular book, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”

First and foremost, Pope Francis is a humble man. “The world tells us to seek success, power and money,” he said. “God tells us to seek humility, service and love.”

Davis did the opposite. She grabbed the loving hand that welcomed her into the Holy See’s embassy and used it to swing to a higher rung on her political climb.

And her media power play is shameless and distasteful.

Two typographical errors in this piece have been corrected.

Ashburn is the former papal visit communications director for the Archdiocese of Washington.