![\"Grassi](\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/grassi.jpg?resize=740%2C497\")
<\/p>\nGay Man Who Met with Pope Says Pontiff Was Blindsided by Kim Davis Meeting<\/b><\/p>\n
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Yayo Grassi, the gay<\/a> former student of Pope Francis, who, along with several friends and his partner of 19 year, had a private meeting with the Pontiff during his U.S. visit, tells Dan Zak at the Washington Post <\/em><\/a>that he decided to speak out about it after the Kim Davis story blew up because he knew there were some shenanigans going on:<\/p>\n “Although I didn’t know any details, I knew immediately that [Pope Francis] had nothing to do with [the Kim Davis meeting], that this was arranged by other people without telling him the real character [of Davis]. I received from friends of mine a lot of quite disturbing mail, telling me that ‘This is your pope, look what he did, and he’s a coward,’ and my defense is ‘We don’t know anything. Just wait until things come out.’ And I’m extremely pleased that I was right. And I never had any doubt that I was right.”<\/p>\n Folks inside the Vatican think the Pope was blindsided too<\/a>, according to a CBS Chicago report.<\/p>\n News of the meeting with Grassi broke<\/a> as the Vatican struggled to contain a narrative surrounding its meeting with Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis.<\/p>\n Earlier on Friday, the Vatican released a statement<\/a> regarding the meeting with Davis, denying that it was private or that it was “a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.”<\/p>\n Davis’s lawyers at the Liberty Counsel countered by saying the Vatican’s statement was a lie, and presented its own narrative (which you can read HERE<\/a>). They also released a set of photos of Kim Davis and her husband allegedly sitting in a Vatican embassy waiting room.<\/p>\n The post Gay Man Who Met with Pope Says Pontiff Was Blindsided by Kim Davis Meeting<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n