I’m not Catholic, but I thought this was pretty cool: http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/world/pope-francis-marries-couple-flight-trnd/index.html
Damn! It’s good to be Pope, huh?
Oh, wait, he married them to each other. 
I thought the Roman pope wasn’t allowed to marry.
I was going to make that joke …
Instead, I’ll say that this is an incredibly cool story (I’m not Catholic, but I love how this Pope seems to be sincere and not full of himself at all. You know many ‘great men’ hardly notice flight attendants and others who serve them - but this Pope took the time to find out their story and then do this ceremony for them!).
You know, back when the Catholic Church was actually on top of things, they’d have been refused the Sacraments if they admitted they’d been fornicating and raising children out of wedlock (civil ceremonies don’t count for Catholics) for the past 7 years. Or at least had to buy an Indulgence before they could get married in the Church.
What an awesome story and just more proof of what a good man Pope Francis is.
Nah.
First, the recommendation to have the marriage be recorded by a priest, with a second witness, doesn’t appear until Trent. XVI century. Second, it was and still is a recommendation. Third, its intent is to make it easier to prove that the marriage exists as opposed to having to call a bunch of people as witnesses, which was the case when no paper records were available. There are medieval records of cases where the witnesses consisted of two whole villages.
A marriage can be sacramentally valid without having been recorded on paper. The couple on the plane hadn’t gotten around to the canonical paperwork, but the marriage already existed. Canonically speaking, they were married the old-fashioned (pre-Tridentine) way.
Nowadays it’s quite common for the sermon to include the reminder that the ceremony is only the paperwork for a sacrament which is actually celebrated by the spouses; it is not created either by the priest or by the paperwork, but exists or does not independently of either.
That’ll be one hell of a divorce.
And to expand slightly on that, priests don’t perform the Sacrament of Marriage. The couple being married does that. Priests just oversee the ceremony.
And as I wrote in a different thread, Marriage didn’t become a state matter in Britain, from which we inherit the foundation of our laws, until an Act of Parliament in 1753. Before that it was under the purview of the Church of England, the official state religion, and before that, the Catholic Church.
Yeah, it’s weird the story doesn’t include anything about them going to confession before marrying one another.
You know, that’s factually inaccurate.
Rather than just saying “You know, that’s factually inaccurate”, perhaps you could provide the correct information?
This is interesting to me. I (presbyterian puritan) was aware that the roman catholic church often has christian theology hidden under the crust of church politics, but in the whole recent debate about gay marriage in Aus, no-one ever mentioned that the RC church regarded the sacrament of marriage as being something between the two partners.
The RC church came out against gay marriage (partly if not mostly for other related reasons), but the whole argument was about the canonical / legal status of gay marriage. Since I regarded marriage as something you do, not something you have done to you, I didn’t have any interest in the big canonical / legal argument. I thought the whole thing was an argument between members of the RC church and people who’s parents had been members of the RC church.
I never saw any indication that the RC church recognised non-canonical marriage at all.
Thanks for acknowledging that the RC church has Christian theology at its core! What do you mean by “recognized non-canonical marriage”?
Like, what if a Hindu man marries a Hindu woman? Are they not really married in the eyes of the Catholic Church? Or are they really married, despite the fact that there was no priest, no confession, no nothing except some pagan mumbo jumbo?
And the answer is that the Catholic Church believes these two people are really married.
When I got married in the RCC, I was told that the wedding had to take place in a church. I wonder if that was just a local rule, or if the pope has the power to waive it or whatever…
Of course when the Church was really on top of things, about 700 years ago, the Pope would have had a mistress and a passel of children.
Sometimes things are more moral today.
I would be impressed if it had been a commercial flight and the couple were same sex
You don’t ask much by half.
I bet if it had been, you’d have said you would have been impressed if he flew coach.
