Flight attendants on the Papal Plane got a special office perk on Thursday: They had their wedding blessed by Pope Francis I.
According to The Associated Press, Paula Podest, 39, and Carlos Ciuffardi, 41, told Francis that they never had a church ceremony after they were married in a civil service in 2010. Their plans were ruined by the Feb. 27, 2010 earthquake in Chile.
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The pope then asked them if they wanted him to bless their marriage. Of course, they said yes, leading to the first-ever airborne papal wedding, 36,000 feet above the ground on a flight from Santiago to Iquique, Chile.
The head of the LATAM airline was also on the flight and served as the witness.
“He told me it’s historic, that there has never before been a pope who married someone aboard a plane,” Ciuffardi told reporters after they landed. “This is the sacrament that is missing in the world, the sacrament of marriage. May this motivate others to get the sacrament of marriage. I’ll do it for this reason.”
The couple has two young children and they are going to take a “mini-honeymoon” when they return to Chile’s capital city.
They told the pope about their marriage when the flight crew posed for pictures with Francis. They told him that their church’s bell tower fell over during the 2010 earthquake and they never got around to have a church ceremony.
“He liked us and he asked, ‘Do you want me to marry you?’ ” Ciuffardi told reporters. “He asked: ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes, of course!’ we said.”
Thankfully, a Vatican official had paper with them, so a marriage certificate was quickly drawn up. It noted that their marriage happened “aboard the papal plane from Santiago to Iquique.”
The AP reports that Podest was nearly speechless, but she did tell reporters that the pope offered a word of advice.
“The wedding rings shouldn’t be too tight, because they’ll torture you, but if they’re too loose, they’ll fall off. So we have to be careful,” Podest said.
Podest said she was her husband’s boss at the airline when they began dating. Francis asked if this was still the case, which it is. “And that’s why the marriage works,” he husband added.
The pope is visiting his native South America this week. Before heading to Peru, he spoke to Chile’s growing immigrant population in Iquique. He asked the faithful to be more helpful to immigrants.
“It is a land that has given shelter to men and women of different peoples and cultures who have had to leave everything behind and set out,” Francis said, reports The Los Angeles Times. “Let us be attentive to the lack of shelter, land and employment experienced by so many families.”
Photo credit: GUILLERMO MUNOZ/AFP/Getty Images
