Francis spontaneously asked to conduct the wedding for Paula Podest and Carlos Ciufardi, flight attendants from Chile’s flagship carrier, LATAM. They had the intention of carrying out a church ceremony, but the quake which hit southern Chile in March 2010 damaged the venue where they were going to hold the service, so they chose to postpone the marriage. He performed a brief ceremony in the front of the plane with an airline executive as the official witness.
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Ciuffardi told journalists in the aisle of the Airbus 321 that Francis told him it was “historic” and no pope had ever before married a couple aboard a plane.
Pope Francis spread the love at 36,000 feet when he married a pair of flight attendants while mid-air.
Without further ado, the Pope took the couple’s love to new heights by marrying them in the sky. “That is why I wanted to share it with you”, he said. “All of a sudden he asked us if we were married in the church, too”.
Francis ends his trip to Chile Thursday by meeting with members of the country’s fast-growing immigrant community in Iquique, home to almost two dozen migrant slums. Mary, a woman of few but very pointed words, also comes up to each of us and says simply: “Do whatever he tells you”.
Prosecutor Enrique Vasquez told reporters at the scene of Wednesday’s blaze that investigators found a sign and pamphlets demanding the release of Mapuche prisoners.The pope urged the Mapuche people to reject violence, saying “You can not assert yourself by destroying others, because this only leads to more violence and destruction”. And let us not be afraid to raise our voices and say: “They have no wine”.
Yet on Thursday, the pope said that he’s yet to see evidence of wrongdoing, and that what’s being said against the bishop is a “calumny”.
Pope Francis has brought his motorcade to a halt to check on a police officer who fell from her rearing horse along the route.
Hours after he arrived on Monday, two small wooden churches were burned to the ground near Temuco, which was on Francis’ itinerary, according to Reuters.
Francis met after the mass with a group of indigenous people before returning to Santiago, where he met with youth groups at the Maipu shrine outside the city and visited Chile’s Catholic university. It noted that their marriage happened “aboard the papal plane from Santiago to Iquique”.
Jackeline Martinez, a food worker who attended the Mass, said the conflict needs to be resolved in a peaceful manner.
The US-based NGO Bishop Accountability said that nearly 80 Roman Catholic clergy members had been accused of sexually abusing children in Chile since 2000.
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The pontiff stressed that he knows the pain of priests and nuns “who after working so hard, have seen the harm that has led to suspicion and questioning; in some or many of you this has been a source of doubt, fear or lack of confidence”.
