(CNN)The day before Pope Francis met anti-gay county clerk Kim Davis in Washington last week, he held a private meeting with a longtime friend from Argentina who has been in a same-sex relationship for 19 years.
Yayo Grassi, an openly gay man, brought his partner, Iwan Bagus, as well several other friends to the Vatican Embassy on September 23 for a brief visit with the Pope. A video of the meeting shows Grassi and Francis greeting each other with a warm hug.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Grassi said the visit was arranged personally with the Pope via email in the weeks ahead of Francis' highly anticipated visit to the United States. Pope Francis met with Iwan Bagus, right, and Yayo Grassi, left.
"Three weeks before the trip, he called me on the phone and said he would love to give me a hug," Grassi said.
Earlier on Friday, the Vatican said that the meeting with Davis was not intended as a show of support for her cause and "the only real audience granted by the Pope at the nunciature (embassy) was with one of his former students and his family." "That was me," Grassi said. -
Grassi, who is 67, added that he is willing to talk about his private moment with the pontiff because he was upset about media coverage of the Pope's meeting with Davis.
"I want to show the truth of who Pope Francis is," he said. http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/pope-gay-washington/index.html?sr=tw100215popeexclusive0434PMStory&linkId=17553641
This is the persistent question. This is beginning to sound like the old TV show, "What's my line?" or whatever it was called.
RE: Yayo Grassi, an openly gay man, brought his partner, Iwan Bagus, as well several other friends to the Vatican Embassy on September 23 for a brief visit with the Pope. A video of the meeting shows Grassi and Francis greeting each other with a warm hug.
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The question is this — given that Yayo Grassi brought several other friends, did the Pope know that Iwan Bagus was his gay partner?