The court clerk in the central U.S. state of Kentucky who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples says she secretly met with Pope Francis during his visit last week to Washington.

In an interview with ABC News broadcast Wednesday, Kim Davis, the elected court clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, said that she and her husband met the pope briefly last Thursday at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C. She said Pope Francis presented her and her husband with two rosaries, thanked her for her courage and urged her to “stay strong.”

Jail time

Davis was jailed for six days earlier this month for defying a federal judges’s order to issue the marriage licenses. She refused to issue marriage licenses to either straight or gay couples, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling back in June that legalized same-sex marriage across the nation, citing her Christian beliefs.

“Who am I to have this rare opportunity?” Davis said in a statement released earlier by the Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal firm. “I am just a a county clerk who loves Jesus and desires with all my heart to serve him.” Davis was in the nation’s capital to receive an award from the Family Research Council, another prominent conservative group, for defying the federal judge’s order.

A spokesman for the Vatican, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, refused to confirm to reporters Wednesday if the meeting took place, and would not comment on the issue.

Monday, during his return trip to Rome, Pope Francis was asked specifically about Davis’s case. The pontiff responded the conscientious objection is a right that belongs to everyone.
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