Holy See News: St. Valentine’s Day Edition

Pope Francis has invited engaged couples to spend Valentine’s Day with him at an event that was originally scheduled for the Paul VI Hall but has since been moved to St. Peter’s Square, since over 17,000 are expected to attend.

Donuts and coffee afterwards. No babysitting will be available.

Not just any engaged couples, mind you. They must be enrolled in pre-marriage classes, registered through their parish and bear tickets, so all that talk of gay couples showing up—well, they might be on the perimeter, looking in. It must be said that the couple on the “Joy of Yes Forever” invitation—a phrase that might remind one of language used by a totalitarian regime?—are both too weirdly close for engaged people, ahem, and also unisex, so make of that what you will. Frankly, St. Valentine’s Day is no longer on the official Roman calendar of feast days, so who knows what else Pope Francis is going to do.

Am I alone in calling up this image while thinking of masses of couples below and the Pope up above?

Unification Church wedding at Madison Square Garden, 1983

In other Holy See news, ecclesiastical dandies are crying into their ruffled cuffs and Vatican tailors are worried, due to Pope Francis’ New Simplicity. My thoughts are prayers are with you, dear Cardinal Burke. I will do my part by purchasing a pair of Cardinal Socks in solidarity and so that I, too, may experience “the confident elegance of an uninhibited prelate.”

Meanwhile, I am resisting the urge to get the Vatican’s Pope App since I think it might put me in the ranks of those double-chinning into their phones while life passes them by. I know my weaknesses.