Pope marries Irish couple

Pope Paul last Sunday married 13 couples, including an Irish couple resident in London, at the High Altar of St
Peter's in a ceremony which Vatican archivists called "Historically unprecedented." It was the first time that Paul had officiated at a wedding since becoming Pope.
The Irish couple, James Albert Sykes and Mary Alice Phillips. of Walthamstow, North London, had planned a simple, informal wedding in the English-language Church of St Sylvester in Rome for the evening of last Friday.
When Pope Paul decided to hold a Holy Year mass wedding in St Peter's they were asked if they would like to be married by the Pope, and jumped at the chance. Two of the other 12 couples were Maltese, the remainder Italian.
The Pope, in his homily to the couples, kneeling in a semicircle facing Bernini's Altar of the Confession, told them: "Be not afraid, Christ is with you. He is close to you to transfigure your love, to enrich its value which is already so great and noble ... He is close to you to make the ties that bind you Firm, stable. indissoluble . ."
Each of the couples came in turn, with best man and bridesmaid, to kneel before the Pope, seated on his throne in front of the altar, and clasping hands read the marriage vows printed on a card in their own languages.
Pope Paul held their clasped hands as James and Mary Alice recited the words and then spoke a few words to them in English before giving them a gold-plated rectangular medallion depicting a bishop with hand raised in blessing over a man and woman holding hands in marriage. On the reverse side was engraved Pope Paul's name.
Vatican archivists said that they could not recall the last marriage ceremony performed by a Pope in St Peter's, and would have to check through all the records. No marriages were performed between the fall of the Papal States in 1870 and the I.ateran Pacts of 1929, which established the Vatican City State.
Normally, in bygone centuries, a Pope would marry only royalty, princely couples or members of his family. Certainly according to the archivists, Pope Paul set a precedent when he married so many couples of different nationalities and of such disparate callings as technician, teachers and graduate students such as the Irish couple, and peasants. One Vatican official said he was sure that such a ceremony had never taken place in the "new" St Peter's since its dedication in 1,626. There had been a report that Pope John XXIII had been prepared to marry Prince Albert Liege to Princess Paola of Italy, but this did not materialise.