Lady and the Pope: The Totally True (Made Up) Story of Kim Davis’s Secret Meeting With Pope Francis

The car took two rights and a left, then two more rights and another left. Or was it three rights? Kim couldn’t keep track with the blindfold over her eyes. The warm sweaty musk of four Italian bishops packed around her in the backseat made her eyes water. These men hadn’t spent much time around a lady, and their discomfort was palpable.

The bishops led her swiftly up the steps and into the bare waiting room at the Embassy’s back. The oldest bishop -- so the most senior of the foursome regardless -- told Kim, “The Pope, he will see you soon.”

“Me? But I’m just a humble county clerk. So humble, in fact, that I got on stage with Mike Huckabee, while a crowd brandished white crosses and called me a hero like I was some sort of second coming of Jesus Christ. That’s just how humble I am!”

“Yes, so, so humble.” The bishops disappeared into another room, and Kim Davis was left alone with her thoughts and her favorite Dress Barn jumper.

“Ahhh, Miss Davis.” Kim spun around to meet eye-to-eye with blindingly white robes, and a hat so high that the wearer had to stoop to enter the room. She immediately fell to her knees.

“Father!” She gasped, barely able to breathe.

Pope Francis beckoned her to stand. “Please, call me, the Pope.”

“Yes, the Pope, of course, the Pope.”

“You are an inspiration to us all. You… how do you say… say the things we are all thinking, you know? But we can’t say the things out loud.”

“Oh, thank you, your holiness-- I mean, the Pope. Thank you, the Pope.”

“I come to this country, I tell Congress to do something about the smog, I tell Obama that he should not execute the prisoners. But that was all smoke and the mirrors. I really just came to America to tell you: Good job! Let’s keep marriage between a man and a woman like God say.”

Kim was floored. All her life she dreamed of a moment when someone commended her on her faith... but THIS! This is the man closest to God. Well, not her God exactly, because she wasn’t Catholic, but Oneness Pentecostal, a sect of christianity that rejects the Holy Trinity -- a foundation of Catholicism. On paper, they both would think the other is going to Hell, but they weren’t on paper. They were really meeting each other in the back of the Vatican Embassy.

“I don’t know what to say, the Pope.”

“Just say the one about Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. That’s a good line. My favorite bishop, he makes me laugh when he does that one. But we don’t say it in the public. We don’t want to be chased out of the country by the liberals with the torches.”

“Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, I like that. It really makes you think…”

“Yes. Think. Here...” Pope Francis reached deep into robes and pulled out a rosary. “Take this. I bless it. It will bring you luck.”

“Thank you. I’ll figure out what to do with this later.” She shoved it into her pocket.

“You don’t pray the rosary?”

“I’m Oneness Pentecostal.”

“Oh. Nobody’s perfect… Your husband, he’s catholic?”

“No. But my second husband was--” She caught herself, but it was too late. Kim’s face turned as red as the beets in her cellar.

“Hey, no, I make a new law, tell people to embrace the divorced. That’s all good, yes? Marriage is still sacred as long as the men can’t marry the other men.”

“Oh right, of course. I mean, what’s next a man marrying his horse?”

“Yeah, or two men marry the one woman! God would say, No way! So I, the Pope, tell you, Kim Davis, to say, No way!” The Pope reached out and chucked Kim under the chin. “You stay strong, Miss Davis.”

“I will! Thank you, the Pope.” Kim beamed. Her head nearly floated off her shoulders.

“Oh, and if you see Huckabee. Tell him God says he can’t get him elected president, so stop asking!”

And just like that, the Pope was gone. Would they ever meet again? Probably not. Would the Pope and his people try to keep this meeting a secret, because it negates nearly all of the goodwill he had logged on his trip up until that point? Yes. Definitely.

So we, the dreamers, are left to imagine how it all went down...