I wondered if coverage like this was a tad reactionary:

After first refusing to confirm or deny it, the Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis met with the Kentucky clerk Kim Davis at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, where Davis’s attorney — who made the news public after the pope’s trip ended — said Francis told her to “stay strong.” We don’t yet know all the details of how the meeting came to pass, but the optics of it are bad no matter what. This simple encounter completely undermines all the goodwill the pope created in downplaying “the gay issue” on his U.S. trip. The pope played us for fools, trying to have it both ways. He’s an artful politician, telling different audiences what they want to hear on homosexuality.

Source: How Pope Francis Undermined the Goodwill of His Trip and Proved to Be a Coward | Michelangelo Signorile

 

Seems it was.

“Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who had been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.”

…The meeting “should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects,” said a press statement from the Vatican

Source: Vatican: Pope’s Kim Davis meeting not meant to support her position – The Washington Post