What do you think people mean when they say ‘Love is in the air’? Whatever their intention of saying that maybe, I don’t think any of them anticipated this as a possible reason for the phrase! But you know, when the Pope’s involved, anything can happen!
In a beautifully surprising move, Pope Francis married a couple on the papal plane on its way to Chile!
Flight attendants Paula Podest and Carlos Ciuffardi of LATAM Flight 1250 from Santiago had no idea what was about to go down as they gathered long with the rest of the cabin crew for a photo op with the Pope. His Holiness was on his way to celebrate Mass with the residents of the town of Iquique.
During the photo ops, the two flight attendants revealed to Pope Francis that they were married, His Holiness asked them if they had been married in church. When they replied in the negative, the kind Pope offered to marry them right then and there!
“We told him that we are husband and wife, that we have two daughters and that we would have loved to receive his blessing. He liked us and he asked,`Do you want me to marry you?”’ Ciuffardi said. He asked, `Are you sure?’ `Yes, of course!’ we said.”
Podest and Ciuffardi had had a civil marriage in 2010 but could not solemnise their marriage because of the Feb 2010 earthquake in Chile that destroyed the church they were supposed to have the wedding in.
According to a report by Indian Express, Ciuffardi told reporters that the Pope had his reasons for doing so. The Pope told Ciuffardi,
“This is the sacrament that is missing in the world, the sacrament of marriage. May this motivate others to get the sacrament of marriage. I’ll do it for this reason.”
A Vatican official drew up a makeshift handwritten marriage certificate, which stated that the Pope had blessed the union aboard the papal flight from Santiago to Iquique.
The groom, ecstatic to have renewed his union with his beautiful wife with nothing less than papal blessing, told journalists about what the Pope told him.
He told me it’s historic, that there has never before been a pope who married someone aboard a plane.”
But that’s not all. His Holiness also imparted some advice to the two ‘newly’ weds.
Ciuffardi revealed,
“He said that the wedding rings shouldn’t be too tight, because they’ll torture you, but that if they’re too loose, they’ll fall off. So we have to be careful.”
Ciuffardi and his wife, Podest, told the pope at the start of their courtship, she was his boss. The Pope then asked them if it was still the case, and it was!
“And that’s why the marriage works,” Ciuffardi said.
Well, that’s quite something for the very first airborne papal wedding, don’t you think? And I like how it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘love is in the air’. Because in this case, it totally was!
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