Huckabee: Kentucky clerk's visit with pope could spur change

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, left, at her side, speaks after being released from the Carter County Detention Center, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, in Grayson, Ky.
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, left, at her side, speaks after being released from the Carter County Detention Center, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, in Grayson, Ky.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that a meeting last week between the pope and a defiant Kentucky clerk could spur political change to "stand up to judicial tyranny and stand for religious liberty."

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and her husband met privately with Pope Francis on Thursday afternoon at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., for less than 15 minutes, said her lawyer, Mat Staver.

"The pope recognized something that the chattering class in Washington and Wall Street will never understand — that Kim Davis followed her conscience and convictions," Huckabee said in a statement. "The pope thanked Kim for doing so and congratulated her for her stand."

Huckabee added: "While the media elites were slobbering all over themselves because Pope Francis commented on climate change, the pope held a quiet and powerful meeting with a humble Apostolic county clerk from Kentucky."

Davis, an Apostolic Christian, spent five days in jail earlier this month for defying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The former Arkansas governor visited with Davis at the Carter County jail in Grayson, Ky., on the day of her release Sept. 8, standing by her side as she spoke to a crowd of supporters.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, didn't deny the encounter took place but said Wednesday in Rome that he had no comment on the topic.

"It was really very humbling to even think that he would want to meet me or know me," Davis said of her meeting with the pope in an interview with ABC.

In a telephone interview late Tuesday, Staver would not say who initiated the meeting with the pope or how it came to be, though he did say that Vatican officials had inquired about Davis' situation while she was in jail. He declined to name them.

"He told me before he left, he said 'stay strong.' That was a great encouragement," Davis said of the pope during the ABC interview. "Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we're doing and agreeing, you know, it kind of validates everything."

She didn't say in the interview whether she had a private audience with the pope or she was part of larger crowd.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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