Pope Francis conducted a wedding ceremony during a flight from Santiago, Chile between Paula Podest, 39, and Carlos Ciufardi, 41.
He offered to marry the couple, who work as flight attendants, after hearing that they never got to have a Catholic Church wedding.
Podest and Ciufardi have been civilly married since 2010, but when the February 27 earthquake of same year damaged the church in which they were due to marry, they didn’t go through with the ceremony.
According to Catholic News Service, the couple, who are both flight attendants for Chile’s LatAm airline, were working in the flight which Pope Francis was travelling in and they walked up to him, explained their story, and requested that he blessed their marriage.
Ciufardi said the pope asked them, “Well, do you want to get married?” “I said, ‘Well, yes. Are you sure?’ Then the pope said, “Are YOU sure?’ I told him, ‘Yes! Let’s get married,’” Ciuffardi said.
And at 36,000 feet above sea level, the pope officiated the first-ever airborne papal wedding, in a flight from Santiago to Iquique, Chile.
“He told me it’s historic, that there has never before been a pope who married someone aboard a plane,”
Ciufardi told journalists in the aisle of the Airbus 321. Ciufardi said the pope told them: “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.”
The couple, who have 2 children Rafaela, 6 and Isabela, 3 –together, plan to take a “mini honeymoon” and return to Santiago on Friday.
(NAN)
