Pope Francis, the wonder pope, managed to destroy most of the scads of liberal goodwill he earned during his recent visit to the United States by sneaking in a visit with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who attracted much national attention through her adamant refusal to process the marriage forms for same-sex couples in her office, claiming that to do so would violate her “religious liberty.” On his trip back to the Vatican, the pope did not directly comment on the Davis case, but did say that “conscientious objection is a human right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.”

I object. Conscientious objection, of course, is primarily associated with persons, usually young men, who refuse to serve in the armed forces of their countries on religious grounds. It is a precious right, hard won, and its recognition over the course of the 20th century was indeed a great advance for human rights. Of course, the right to conscientious objection in this country was rather stingily extended, first only to denominations that were ostentatiously pacifist, like the Quakers and Mennonites, and only later to mainstream denominations, like the Catholics—Dorothy Day, a Catholic pacifist that Pope Francis talked up during his address to Congress, fought for the right of Catholic conscientious objection over the cavils of many Catholic bishops. And it was always presumed that only religious persons could be conscientious and have a conscience. For a secular person to want to avoid killing others was often seen as frivolous or cowardly. Since the end of the military draft in most western countries (with Israel being a big exception) the need for traditional conscientious objection has declined, but it remains a central human right, an assertion that government has no dominion over the individual conscience.

But here’s the thing. Privates, or would-be privates, have the right to conscientious objection. Generals do not. If you are a general, and suddenly decide that war is a moral abomination, that you will study war no war, and in no way contrite to war making, that is lovely, and your prerogative, but is incompatible with your general-ing, and your fellow generals would be, I think, within their rights to ask you to resign your commission. Because if you agreed to be a general, then making war is your job. If you feel that you can no longer work in that capacity, find another job. And if the law requires you approve same-sex marriages, and you in good conscience feel that you cannot, you must resign.

Governments coerce. They have a monopoly on legitimate violence. If you don’t follow the laws, there often are negative consequences. Conscientious objection carves out a place where governments do not and cannot go. The boundary of conscientious objection is, like all important principles, somewhat fuzzy, and there are hard cases. But one thing is clear. Conscientious objection is a private right, a right of conscience, and there is no such thing as a shared or public conscience. It can never be invoked, as did Kim Davis, and, implicitly, Pope Francis, to deny rights to others.

Because when persons in positions of power use that power, on the claim of doing so because their religious beliefs, and deny rights to others, this is not conscientious objection. This is called bigotry. It is something that the Catholic Church knows well. For many centuries the church argued that there was no separation between it and the state, and whatever brands of religion they did not like (Jews, Protestants, Muslims) had no rights that the church was obliged to respect. So when Pope Francis supports the right of Kim Davis and her ilk to conscientious objection, he is returning the church to what it was for so long, a force for intolerance, discrimination, and invidious distinctions between “good people” and “bad people,” between the saved and the damned. So let Pope Francis, if he so chooses, canonize more colonialists and imperialists like California’s Junipero Serra. But don’t beatify the worst aspects of American religious bigotry, as represented in the odious case of Kim Davis.