The news of the marriage of two former religious sisters has saddened Pope Francis, according to the Vatican Undersecretary of State, Archbishop Angelo Becciu.
On Friday the Italian daily La Repubblica published an interview with the two ex-nuns, identified only as Federica and Isabel, in which they describe their love as a “gift of God” that no one can prevent.
Pope Francis, who has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, was visibly distressed on reading the news, according to the Archbishop. “What sadness on the face of the Pope when I read him the news of the two ‘nun’ brides,” he tweeted.
Quanta tristezza sul volto del Papa quando gli ho letto la notizia delle due “suore” spose!
— Angelo Becciu (@AngeloBecciu) October 7, 2016
On September 28, the two former nuns, both in their forties, were wed in a civil union celebrated in the Turin City Hall by the mayor. Federica is a native of Southern Italy while her partner Isabel is South American, according to reports.
The two sisters met during a missionary trip to Guinea Bissau, and credit Pope Francis himself with encouraging them to move forward in their relationship with his exclamation, “Who am I to judge?” That phrase “opened our hearts,” the two former nuns said.
After the civil union at city hall, the two brides had their union “blessed” by an ex-priest, Franco Barbero, who has made a name for himself by celebrating gay marriages, according to an article posted by the Prefect of the Papal Household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.
Just a year ago, Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, who at the time worked for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made the front pages of Italian newspapers by coming out as openly gay on the vigil of the opening of the Vatican Synod on the Family.
The Monsignor released a “manifesto of liberation,” consisting of a list of ten “demands,” in which he insisted that the Catholic Church change its teaching on the morality of gay sex as well as its interpretation of the Bible as condemning sodomy.
Posing for photos with his Catalonian boyfriend Eduard, Charamsa said that he intended to make “an enormous noise” and to put “pressure” on the Church on behalf of the LGBT agenda.
Charamsa prepared for his media show by granting a lengthy, multi-language interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, in which he accused the Church of being “behind the times” and of not looking homosexuals “in the eye.”
In their interview last week, the two ex-sisters said they decided to “leave the religious life and begin a path of freedom and faith lived with serenity, without scandal, beneath the merciful gaze of God.”
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome
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