Pope Leo names New York auxiliary bishop to lead Diocese of Rochester

Aboard the papal plane, Jan 18, 2018 / 07:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his five years in office, Pope Francis gained a reputation for tossing protocol and embracing spontaneity. Today, he did it again with another papal first: marrying two flight attendants on board his flight from Santiago to Iquique.

According to journalists traveling with the Pope, the couple – Paula Podest and Carlos Ciuffardi – went to the Pope during the Jan. 18 flight to ask for his blessing.

The couple told Francis they had been civilly married, but had not been able to get married in the Church because their parish was destroyed in the massive 8.8 earthquake that rocked Santiago in 2010.

In response, the Pope offered to marry them on the spot. Ignacio Cueto, owner of the airline company, LATAM, was a witness in the ceremony.

According to Ciuffardi, who spoke briefly with journalists after the ceremony, the Pope asked the couple if they were married yet, and when they explained why they hadn’t been married in the Church, he said “do you want to get married?”

The Pope, Ciuffardi said, asked them “Are you sure, absolutely sure?” They said yes, gave the Pope Podest’s ring and asked Cueto if he would be a witness. The Pope then blessed the ring, placed their hands together, offered some brief reflections and pronounced them man and wife.

#PopeFrancis married these flight attendants aboard the papal plane flying to Iquique, #Chile this morning.

Their wedding was canceled when an earthquake destroyed their church in Santiago in 2010.

Join us in congratulating the happy couple! #FranciscoEnChile pic.twitter.com/3pQ64oy7nP

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) January 18, 2018

According to Ciuffardi, Francis told them what happened “was historic,” because “never has a Pope married a couple on a plane.”

Referring to the rings, Francis jested that they shouldn’t be too tight, because “they would be a torture,” nor too loose, because they might lose them.

Since they didn’t have an official marriage certificate to sign, Pope Francis asked the cardinals with him to draft one, so they grabbed a piece of blank copy paper and each signed their names and what role they played in the ceremony. One of the cardinals also signed as a witness.

The Pope also gave the couple two rosaries, Podest received a white rosary and Ciuffardi a black one.

The couple – who have two children, Rafaela, 6, and Isabela, 3 – said they will be traveling with the Pope to Iquique, and from there will take a different flight to another destination, and will celebrate after.  

“It was something historic, really. Very exciting. What he told us was very important: he told us ‘this is the sacrament that the world needs, the sacrament of marriage. Hopefully, this will motivate couples around the world to get married’,” Ciuffardi said.

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The Basilica of St. John Lateran. / Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Vatican City, Nov 9, 2023 / 04:00 am (CNA).
The Diocese of Rome has planned a full year of events to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, which wa… […]

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2019 / 09:30 am (CNA).- The publication date of the new constitution governing the Roman Curia has been delayed again as Pope Francis’ council of cardinals continues to evaluate suggestions to the draft that was given to bishops’ conferences in May.

The now six-member advisory council met at the Vatican Dec. 2-4.

According to a brief Vatican press release Dec. 4, the group of cardinals had continued to receive suggestions on the text of the new apostolic constitution, provisionally titled Praedicate evangelium, until a few days before the start of the latest round of meetings.

The council of cardinals will continue its “reading and evaluation” of the draft at its next meeting, which will take place in February 2020, the Holy See press office stated.

Praedicate evangelium will replace Pastor bonus, the current apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia promulgated by Pope John Paul II on June 28, 1988, and subsequently modified by both popes Benedict and Francis.

The new document is expected to place renewed emphasis on evangelization as the structural priority of the Church’s mission, with some predicting the merger of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization into a single larger department.

In June, the secretary of the council, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, said there was a possibility Pope Francis would see a final draft of the document in September, but in September cardinals were still working on incorporating the suggestions submitted by bishops’ conferences and others during the summer.

The new constitution has been the advisory group’s key reform project since its establishment in 2013, one month after Pope Francis’ election.

According to the press release, this week’s meetings focused on two aspects of the draft text: the relationship between the Roman Curia and bishops’ conferences, and the presence of lay men and women in decision-making roles in curial and other Church offices.

The “theological-pastoral bases of these aspects” was also studied.

The Council of Cardinal Advisors is often referred to informally as the “C9,” although there have been only six members for nearly the past year.

The current members – Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, Reinhard Marx, Sean O’Malley, Giuseppe Bertello, and Oswald Gracias – were all present for the latest gathering, the group’s 32nd round of meetings.

Pope Francis also attended sessions, when not in other audiences and appointments. Bishop Marcello Semeraro, the secretary of the council, was also present at the meetings this week.

Besides discussing the curial constitution, the council heard a report from Cardinal Michael Czerny on October’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon and some considerations from Cardinal O’Malley on the work of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

They also heard from Cardinal Marx on the Church in Germany’s “synodal path” and the topics on which it will focus.

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