Maybe Pope Francis doesn't want to talk about Kim Davis because the exorcism was a failure.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) September 30, 2015
It may even be weirder than that joke. Jay Levine, at CBS2 Chicago:
… A highly placed source inside the Vatican claims the Pope was blindsided.
As Pope Francis was addressing a joint session of Congress, then thousands more gathered outside on the west lawn, Kim Davis, who’d become the poster child for opponents of same-sex marriage, was getting ready for a meeting with him at the Vatican embassy.
It is a meeting some charge was orchestrated by the man who lived there, the Pope’s representative here, Carlo Maria Vigano.
Not even the Papal Spokesman Federico Lombardi knew about it ahead of time. Nor did the leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which would have opposed it…
A close advisor to Pope Francis tweeted that the Pope was, in his words, “exploited” by those who set up what the CBS 2 source says was a “meeting that never should have taken place.”
Some call it an attempt by highly placed church leaders in the U.S. to diminish the impact of the Pope’s visit….
Cradle Catholic Charles P. Pierce explains it for those of you who didn’t grow up scrutinizing every priestly comment for loopholes and hidden meanings:
… First of all, let us stipulate that there are more than a few members of the Church’s permanent bureaucracy, both within the Clan Of The Red Beanie and without, who are not happy that this gentleman got elected Pope, and who are not happy with what he’s done and said since he was. Second, let us stipulate that many members of this group are loyal to both former pope Josef Ratzinger and, through him, to the memory (and to what they perceive as the legacy) of John Paul II who, for good and ill, had a much different idea of how to wield a papacy than Papa Francesco does. Third, let us stipulate that this opposition to the current pope has been active and vocal, to say nothing of paranoid. Finally, let us stipulate that, for over 2000 years, the Vatican has been a hotbed of intrigue, betrayal, and sanctified ratfcking on a very high scale. (It also has been a hotbed of, well, hot beds, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.) So, if you’re one of these people, and you’re looking to ratfck the pope’s visit to the United States, and to his agenda in general, you’d be looking to put him in a box. So, how would you do that?…
Much more detail about the various pious ratfvckers actors at the link.
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Apart from keeping in mind that no bureaucracy survives several centuries without developing great skill at self-preservation, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another tangled week?
Friday Morning Open Thread: <i>Another</i> Vast Right-Wing ConspiracyPost + Comments (208)