WNA Exclusive: Pope held private meeting with same-sex couple in U.S

WNA Exclusive: Pope held private meeting with same-sex couple in U.S.

(WNA)The day before Pope Francis met against gay district assistant Kim Davis in Washington a week ago, he held a private meeting with a long-term companion from Argentina who has been in a same-sex relationship for a long time.

Yayo Grassi, a transparently gay man, brought his accomplice, Iwan Bagus, also a few different companions to the Vatican Embassy on September 23 for a brief visit with the Pope. A meeting's video demonstrates Grassi and Francis welcoming one another with a warm embrace.

In an elite meeting with WNA, Grassi said the visit was orchestrated by and by with the Pope through email in the weeks in front of Francis' exceptionally expected visit to the United States.

Pope Francis meets with, embraces same-sex couple

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"Three weeks before the outing, he called me on the telephone and said he would love to give me an embrace," Grassi said.

The meeting between the Pope and gay couple adds another charming turn to the interesting fallout of Francis' first-ever outing to the United States. Since news broke on Tuesday of Francis' meeting with Davis, moderates have cheered the apparently certain underwriting, while liberals have addressed how much the Pope thought about her case. Davis burned through six days in a Kentucky correctional facility a month ago to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The two experiences - one with a straightforwardly gay couple and one with an administration authority who enthusiastically contradicts homosexuality - have left the Vatican scrambling to issue explanations that look to de-politicize the Pope's gatherings and motivation.

On Friday evening, Vatican representative the Rev. Federico Lombardi said that Grassi had requested that present his companions to Francis in Washington.

"As noted before, the Pope, as minister, has kept up numerous individual associations with individuals in a soul of generosity, welcome and dialog," Lombardi said.

Prior on Friday, the Vatican said that the meeting with Davis was not expected as a show of backing for her reason and "the main genuine gathering of people conceded by the Pope at the nunciature (government office) was with one of his previous understudies and his gang."

"That was me," Grassi said.

Grassi, who is 67, added that he is willing to discuss his private minute with the pontiff on the grounds that he was vexed about media scope of the Pope's meeting with Davis.

"I need to demonstrate reality of who Pope Francis is," he said.

Pope Francis taught Grassi in writing and brain research classes at Inmaculada Concepcion, a Catholic secondary school in Sante Fe, Argentina, from 1964-1965. Grassi, who said he is an agnostic, moved to the United States in 1978 and maintains a providing food business in Washington.

Grassi said the Pope has long realized that he is gay, yet has never censured his sexuality or his same-sex relationship. In the video, Francis says he met Grassi's sweetheart in Rome.

"He has never been judgmental," Grassi said. "He has never said anything negative."

Grassi said that he requested the meeting in Washington in light of the fact that the companions he brought along have been through troublesome times and needed to get of a gift from the pontiff.

Toward the end the meeting, the Pope embraces both Grassi and Bagus and kisses them on the cheek.

"Clearly he is the congregation's minister and he needs to take after the congregation's teachings," Grassi included. "In any case, as an individual he sees a wide range of circumstances, and he is interested in a wide range of individuals, incorporating those with distinctive sexual qualities."

While not changing church instructing, which considers same-sex connections corrupt, Pope Francis shows regularly accentuated leniency over judgment. In 2013, for instance, he broadly said, "Why should I judge" gay clerics who try to do God's will. He likewise allegedly met with a transgender man from Spain in January of this current year.

Transgender man: I met with Pope Francis

In the meantime, the Vatican has declined to perceive France's envoy to the Holy See, Laurent Stefanini, who is straightforwardly gay. Furthermore, Francis has indicate little slant to conform church convention on sexuality.

"It reminds us, once more, that the Pope meets with a wide range of individuals on his outings and that such gatherings are not an "underwriting" of anything," said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit minister and editorial manager everywhere at America magazine.

"For this situation, for instance, he is not embracing same-sex marriage. In any case, if Mr. Grassi's record is precise, then it makes me cheerful to realize that the Pope stays in touch with his old companions, both gay and straight. For kinship and welcome are at the heart of the Christian life."

This October, the Vatican will hold a noteworthy meeting, called a synod, to talk about how to priest to gays and lesbians, among different issues confronting cutting edge Catholics.

While Grassi depicts his relationship to the Pope as close, they haven't generally conceded to same-sex rights.

Amid Argentina's warmed civil argument over same-sex marriage in 2010, Grassi chastised the Pope for restricting gay rights. At a certain point, the future pontiff recommended that same-sex marriage is the villain's work.

"You have been my aide, ceaselessly moving my points of view—you have molded the most dynamic parts of my perspective," Grassi kept in touch with the future Pope in an email, as per National Geographic magazine. "Furthermore, to hear this from you is so baffling."

Grassi told WNA that Francis - then Cardinal Jorge Margio Bergoglio - composed back, saying that he was to learn upset his previous understudy and promising that "homophobia" had no spot in the Catholic Church.

Grassi said he trusts the Pope was "misdirected" into meeting with Davis, who served six days in a Kentucky prison for declining to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis and her legal counselors had depicted the ecclesiastical meeting as a support of her reason.

"Simply realizing that the pope is on track with what we're doing and concurring, you know, it sort of approves everything," she told ABC.

In any case, following a few days of inquiries and society war competing, the Vatican said that was not the situation.

"The Pope did not go into the subtle elements of the circumstance of Mrs. Davis, and his meeting with her ought not be viewed as a type of backing of her position in the greater part of its specific and complex viewpoints," Lombardi said in an announcement issued Friday morning.

The topic of who, precisely, set up the meeting in the middle of Davis and the Pope has been the subject of fervid media theory this week.

Vatican authorities have said that such an experience could just have occurred with the arranging and endorsement of the Holy See's nuncio - or agent - to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viga