# Pope Francis marries a pair of flight attendants on his plane **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 18, 2018, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909 "2018-01-18T15:49:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/41 "2018-01-19T21:04:35Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > I was being somewhat tongue in cheek in my reply (especially about the Indulgences), but what is factually inaccurate? I was taught, in my 12 years of Catholic school, including a year long course titled “Love Sex and Marriage”, that Catholics must be married according to the canonical rules, which include the marriage being performed by a priest. There are exceptions to this - like two Catholics being stranded on a desert isle with no immediate hope of rescue - but “the Church was knocked down by an earthquake” is not one of them - certainly they had the opportunity during the following seven years to have their marriage performed by a priest. > > So they were not married, and were committing the sin of fornication during those 7 years. I was also taught that willfully and repeatedly committing a major sin, with no intention of stopping, is a mortal sin, so receiving the sacraments in that state (except for confession of course), would be yet another mortal sin. > > Was I taught incorrectly? Is it now acceptable for Catholics to marry in a civil ceremony and live a married life together? Was that the case in the 70s & 80s, when I was in Catholic school? I’m going by memory here, and I could be wrong, but I think the only sacrament you’re not supposed to participate in if you have unforgiven mortal sins is Communion. Remember that Confession is a sacrament, and you certainly wouldn’t say that you can’t participate in that sacrament if you are in a state of sin. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/42 "2018-01-19T22:08:58Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Rather than just saying “You know, that’s factually inaccurate”, perhaps you could provide the correct information? A day later and nothing, so I’m guessing…no? ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/43 "2018-01-19T22:14:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m going by memory here, and I could be wrong, but I think the only sacrament you’re not supposed to participate in if you have unforgiven mortal sins is Communion. Remember that Confession is a sacrament, and you certainly wouldn’t say that you can’t participate in that sacrament if you are in a state of sin. If you notice, I specifically mentioned Confession as the one sacrament you could partake of while in a state of mortal sin. That’s probably not right either. Going through them: Baptism - required before confession anyway, so probably OK if in a state of mortal sin Confession - duh. Eucharist - Nope, cannot. Confirmation - I’d assume no. I recall being required to go confession the day before Confirmation. Marriage - ? Holy Orders - got to be a no. Anointing of the Sick - IIRC, if the person is conscious, they’re usually asked to make a confession first anyway. If they’re not conscious or otherwise able to confess, then they can hardly be at fault for receiving the sacrament while in a state of mortal sin. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2018, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/44 "2018-01-20T01:46:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Baptism - required before confession anyway, so probably OK if in a state of mortal sin In fact, the teaching is that baptism washes away all sin that a person might have. But it’s not a general substitute for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because you can only receive baptism once. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/45 "2018-01-21T12:13:09Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > I did read your reply. My reply was about what I learned 40ish years ago, not 15th century & previous. > > And as I said, I don’t see that the exceptions for a canonical marriage would apply in their case. I’m not the Pope though, so I won’t argue with his ability to say they do. > > Look, I’m not saying the Pope can’t do whatever he wants. I don’t really care. But it seems to me that it would be a lot more effective and praiseworthy if he actually changed the rules for Catholic marriage, instead of just getting some friendly press coverage for performing a cutesy marriage on a plane. You seem to have missed two key points of the current, post-16th century rule: getting the marriage recorded by two witnesses, one of them a priest, is a recommendation, not a requirement requirements such as “the paperwork and any accompanying ceremony must take place in a consecrated building” or “in a parish” are local; they change from location to location and time to time; whether they can be waived and the paperwork to do so are also defined locally. There is no need to change the rule, what there is is a lot of people who, like your teachers, think the rule is more rigid than it actually is. This location-bound requirements apply to other sacraments as well: my brother and his wife got married last year, the ceremony took place in a hermitage but the paperwork is recorded in a parish and they needed to be able to indicate what parish it would be recorded in before being allowed to use the hermitage; their child could not be baptised in the same ceremony because that has to be in a parish except in case of emergency (hospital chaplains can baptize there). Those specific rules apply to our specific archdiocese but not necessarily to any other diocese in the world. Latin America, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to many other locations, has a very big social problem with rules being misapplied due to misunderstood literalism. My cousin spent 11 years as a secular missionary in Venezuela: during that time, she recorded, both with the Church and with the Venezuelan Government, thousands of people who were not recorded because the government form to register the birth of a baby asked “name of the husband” and “name of the wife”. The parents hadn’t been married, so they hadn’t recorded the children. But alas, very often one or another of the parents were also not recorded. Why? Because their own parents weren’t married. Why? Because at some point someone had been born on the wrong side of the blankets. That someone had not been recorded, their children, grandchildren, great-granchildren… had not either. It is perfectly possible that the two stewards had been told they could have the second wedding at the church so long as it was within a certain time of the civil ceremony (Chile does not recognize religious ceremonies as being civilly valid); because of the quake they went beyond that time. The story doesn’t say, but it’s possible that they understood the rule they had been given as being more rigid than it actually is and didn’t ask again. It is also possible that they did ask and ran into someone who thought the rule more important than the sacrament. Of imbeciles is the world full. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/46 "2018-01-21T14:13:15Z")
Since the flight was in Chilean air space, the marriage is not legal unless there was full conformity with Chilean law. Was there a Chilean marriage license? The civil registry needs to be informed in advance, and then be properly filed within eight days after the marriage. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/47 "2018-01-21T14:44:22Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Since the flight was in Chilean air space, the marriage is not legal unless there was full conformity with Chilean law. Was there a Chilean marriage license? The civil registry needs to be informed in advance, and then be properly filed within eight days after the marriage. They’ve been legally married since 2010. The ceremony on the plane had a religious effect only - which is a fact that I think people are missing. When I was in Catholic school in the US ( over 40 years ago) there was indeed a whole lot of “it’s a sin to get married outside the Church and you’ll be fornicating” etc - but that was to discourage people from getting married civilly. Once a couple had already married civilly, even forty years ago the focus was on regularizing the marriage rather than barring them and their children from the Church. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/48 "2018-01-21T19:39:48Z")
Catholic marriage is really strange, the couple never really knows if their marriage is valid or not, A marriage tribunal would have to investigate and decide. It’s funny a couple could live an entire married lifetime with out realizing they were never really married. > **[Updated: Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/34056/updated-most-marriages-today-are-invalid-pope-francis-suggests)** > > Pope Francis said Thursday that the great majority of sacramental marriages today are not valid, because couples do not enter into them with a proper understanding of permanence and commitment. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/49 "2018-01-22T22:44:22Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > 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. (My boldings above) Going off at a tangent from the in-the-air happening which prompted the thread; but, a (trivia-type) light of understanding has just gone on for me. I’m not Catholic, and have not had a lot to do with Catholics: but have for decades known – context “history” – about the Council of Trent; and been aware of the word “Tridentine” – largely, coupled with “Mass”: dim awareness of its significance “old-fashioned as opposed to late-20th-century radical”. Always before, the actual word had suggested to me, just three-pronged forks; and I’d simply thought, “Catholics have a lot of weird names for things – so what?” I now realise for the first time – confirmed by Googling – the meaning of “Tridentine”, as “of or pertaining to the city of Trento or Trent, in Italy”. Thank you, **Nava** , for tipping me off re this fact – which I feel foolish for not having realised long before. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909/50 "2018-01-23T21:49:54Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > They’ve been legally married since 2010. The ceremony on the plane had a religious effect only - which is a fact that I think people are missing. When I was in Catholic school in the US ( over 40 years ago) there was indeed a whole lot of “it’s a sin to get married outside the Church and you’ll be fornicating” etc - but that was to discourage people from getting married civilly. Once a couple had already married civilly, even forty years ago the focus was on regularizing the marriage rather than barring them and their children from the Church. If one or both members of a marriage are Catholic, and were married in a (canonically) non-valid marriage ceremony, they can (and in the eyes of the Church, as supposed to) have the marriage legally recognized by the Church through repeating their vows, a process known as convalidation before a priest (in this case, perhaps the Pope). If both partners are Christians but are not Catholics and is married by a Christian minister, or if one is married in a non-Christian faith, the marriage is considered valid by the Church. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-francis-marries-a-pair-of-flight-attendants-on-his-plane/806909.md?page=2)