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 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 honor a U.S. Supreme Court ruling
and issue same-sex marriage licenses.
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 Vatican later confirmed on Friday that the pope met with Yayo
Grassi, a U.S.-based Argentine caterer who is gay and brought his
male partner of 19 years to the meeting.
Grassi, 67, has known the pope since Francis taught him literature
and psychology at a high school in Argentina in the 1960s and has
stayed in touch.
"What I can say is that he met with me knowing that I am gay, and we
had an extraordinary, very moving conversation," Grassi told
Reuters.
EMBASSY UNDERESTIMATED SIGNIFICANCE
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.
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, Father Tom Rosica, a Canadian priest, laid the blame on
the Vatican embassy in Washington, saying it had underestimated the
impact of Davis's presence at the reception.
"I'm not sure that they (the embassy) realized 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.
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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 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 licenses 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 centerpiece
of the papal visit. This is one small part of it, but it is a loaded
centerpiece."
(Additional reporting by Steve Bittenbender in Louisville, Kentucky
and Alistair Bell in Washington DC; Editing by Crispian Balmer,
Ralph Boulton, Richard Balmforth and Jonathan Oatis)
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