TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Pope marries couple on papal plane
Change Size
Handout picture released by the Vatican press office Osservatore Romano showing Pope Francis (R) marrying Latam airline flight attendants Paula Podest (C) and Carlos Ciuffardi (foreground) during the flight between Santiago and the northern city of Iquique on January 18, 2018, as their witness, Chilean businessman and one of the owner of the airline, Ignacio Cueto (2-L), looks on. Pope Francis married the couple aboard the papal plane as it flew over Chile on the third day of his South American trip. (HO/Osservatore Romano/AFP /File)
P
ope Francis married a couple of airline employees aboard the papal plane as it flew over Chile on the third day of his South American trip.
Francis formally joined in matrimony 41-year-old Carlos Ciuffardi and Paula Podest, 39, who have two children and are both flight attendants.
The Chilean couple married in a civil ceremony in 2010 but were never formally wed in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
Read also: In Chile, pope seeks forgiveness for sex abuse scandals
The brief ceremony took place at an altitude of 36,000 feet (11,000 meters) on a two-hour flight taking the pope from the capital Santiago to the northern city of Iquique.
At the end of the ceremony, which took place out of view of journalists traveling with the pope, the two Latam employees co-signed a handwritten marriage certificate which bore the pope's simple signature "Francis."
According to the Vatican, the couple were unable to have a religious ceremony at the time of their civil marriage because the church they chose for the event was destroyed in an earthquake.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims were awaiting the pope in Iquique, where he was scheduled to celebrate an open-air mass on the shores of the Pacific on the third day of his visit.
