All seemed rather predictable during Pope Francis's recent visit to the United States. Even his officially unscheduled meeting with victims of clerical sexual abuse was expected by many Vatican observers. But the pope who has made unpredictability predictable could not return to Rome without a parting surprise. Who would have imagined that a pope who strongly preaches unity and reconciliation would meet with such a polarizing figure as Pentecostal court clerk, Kim Davis? So why did the Pope of Mercy meet with a government employee who was jailed for denying the civil rights of gay Kentuckians?
In meeting with the controversial Pentecostal convert the Argentine pontiff broadened the scope of his defense of "religious liberty." As the head of the Catholic Church he is most interested in the rights of his own ecclesiastical institution. Many American bishops have been battling Obamacare over contraception requirements. The pope's public visit with the Little Sisters of the Poor, the nuns who've been at the forefront of the struggle against Obamacare was a strong endorsement of the bishops. His fifteen-minute meeting with a Pentecostal who refuses to obey the law of the land on religious grounds allowed him to broaden the scope of his narrow defense of confessional interests to a larger championing of the rights of "persecuted Christians."
The surprise meeting also makes for an unequivocal rejection of gay marriage. On the eve of his U.S. visit some 40 percent of American Catholics mistakenly believed the Latin American pope was in favor of gay marriage. Coupled with his frequent remarks about the sanctity of the traditional nuclear family, his meeting with one of the most high-profile opponents of same-sex marriage sends a clear signal about where he stands on the issue. Millions of LGBT Americans who saw the charismatic pope as agent of positive change for the Church's acceptance of alternative families have had their illusions shattered. For many of them, Kim Davis is the poster child of LGBT oppression, the George Wallace of the suppression of their civil rights.
Paradoxically, the tete-a-tete with the county court clerk, who is on her fourth marriage, increases the pope's political capital at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family. Having burnished his traditionalist credentials on matters of the Christian family, the Pope of Mercy is in a better position to lobby for measures that would make for a more inclusive church. Of course, the great irony is that his meeting with the zealous convert Kim Davis has alienated scores of LGBT Americans, both Catholic and non-Catholic.
Finally, the encounter with the woman who has become the face of the "persecution of Christians" in the U.S. dramatically underscores the idea that the so-called Global War on Christians is not only confined to the Middle East and other parts of Asia but also is being waged on U.S. soil and in other nations of the Americas, such as Mexico and Colombia. Vatican pundit John Allen Jr. is the most prominent exponent of the idea that the systematic persecution of Christians also occurs in the Americas, which, of course, is the most Christian region on earth.
In meeting with a lightning-rod figure who has been embraced by two of the most conservative Republican candidates for president, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, the Pope of Inclusiveness has alienated many who were just starting to feel more included in the Church.