Pope marries 20 cohabiting couples in sign of papacy shift

[Lady Vizsla]

Quote:

Pope Francis has presided over the marriage of 20 couples at the Vatican, including some who were cohabiting, one of them with a child.

Pope Francis had asked to marry 40 people from different social backgrounds who represented modern couples.

It was the first papal marriage ceremony of its kind in 14 years.

The pope has expressed greater tolerance than his predecessor on many issues, including family values.

Sunday's ceremony at St Peter's Basilica in Rome comes three weeks before a meeting of Catholic bishops from around the world to examine church teachings on family matters.

One of the couples married was a man whose previous marriage was annulled and a single mother with a daughter from a previous relationship.

Pope Francis told the couples at the two-hour ceremony that marriage was "not an easy road, it's sometimes a contentious trip, but that's life," AFP news agency reports.

Article

[stepawayfromthedrawers]

Francis' quote is contextually appropriate, given that the numerous and inflexible Catholic rules defining marriage and sex could only be unanimously followed in an alternate universe governed by determinism rather than chaos. More simply, it's because life is so complicated sometimes that even those who hold these rules in high esteem have trouble following them.

As a religious community, Catholics are rather slow to change. Just for an example from one generation prior, my parents conceived me during their engagement period and before my dad had even decided to convert, and my grandma on mom's side didn't drop the issue until I was born.

[azulmagia]

Nothing new about that, the Moonies have been doing it for years.

[Alexander J Luthor]

[David2074]

"Pope Francis has presided over the marriage of 20 couples at the Vatican, including some who were cohabiting, one of them with a child."

In this context I'm sure what they mean by "cohabiting" is "living together in sin".
I'm surprised the Pope would approve of someone doing that with a child. smile

INB4: Yes, of course I get it. I just thought the wording sounded funny.


I'm not Catholic but it seems like getting married by the Pope would be sort of a mixed blessing (no pun intended). On the one hand it is kind of an honor. On the other hand if the marriage does fail it seems like it would complicate getting an annulment or whatever from the church. What local bishop (or priest or whatever he is called) wants to be the guy who annulled a marriage the Pope himself performed?

I'm also thinking these couples probably underwent a lot of scrutiny.
On the one hand the Pope's minions had been instructed to find some "modern couples" for him to marry. On the other hand it is fairly high profile and being done for the sake of making news so they likely did not want people who had too much negative stuff in their backgrounds in case some investigative reporter did some digging. Also, I assume, they wanted folks who they felt had a decent chance of staying married. It would make a rather embarrassing future news story if almost all of the folks the supreme leader of the Catholic church, the voice of God himself married - ended up getting divorced.
So on the one hand kind of cool, on the other hand a lot of pressure.

[nitznitz]

I like this pope.