Pope Francis … sent a subtle but powerful signal last month when he presided over the marriage in Rome of 20 couples of various ages, whose lives were somewhat unconventional by the standards of the church, although perfectly ordinary in most worldly terms. They included a bride who was already a mother, people who had been married before, and people who had been living together.
I have a feeling that if Pope Benedict had done exactly the same thing he would have been stridently denounced for forcing today’s flexible tolerant people into the Procrustean bed of a traditional and unitary Catholic model of matrimony.