The unexpected recovery of little Sara after being sprayed with holy water while hospitalized was the kick-off of the email exchange that made it possible for Pope Francis to marry Uruguayans Noelia Franco and Omar Caballero by surprise, in the Vatican and in front of his daughters.

September 19, 2018 was not just another day for the Caballero Franco family, who, to this day, are not clear why the Supreme Pontiff decided, responding to an email, to receive them in the private audience in which, unexpectedly, he officiated his marriage by the church and shared with them “the secret of the happy and lasting marriage”.

This is assured in dialogue with EFE by the mother of five daughters who dates back to 2014, when, shortly after being born, Sara – the youngest – had to be admitted to an Intensive Treatment Center for the VRS virus and applied a few drops of water blessed by Francis that a friend had brought from the Vatican.

“With my husband we said that we were going to put it on and that if he was saved we were going to go to the Vatican to thank him and it was like that. We put the droplets on her and automatically she entered the exit curve and came out,” says who, before the little girl turned two years old, traveled with her to Rome to thank her in person.

From that meeting he returned with “a lot of holy water” and rosaries, but also with the earring that his husband and other daughters knew him; so he let his secretary know in an email in which he mentioned that he wanted him to bless his 24-year marriage, because they had never been able to officiate him for the church because he did not have money “even for the rings.”

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CEL

“They answered our email and we started in Rome. It was all crazy, because we only had an email, which could have been someone’s joke: ‘I’ll wait for you at eight on September 19 9:15 at Casa Santa Marta’,” he says about the answer by which, after going through security checks, they ended up waiting for him in a room.

“At one point they make us stop, priests begin to pass and he appears with his arms like this – raised -, he shouts ‘Uruguayans!’ and there we loosened (the nerves) (…) He was a grandfather sitting with the family, talking about things about Uruguay, about Argentina,” he recalls the talk that gave rise to the unexpected question about whether they wanted to be married by him.

“We were tough and a great joke was sent. He said ‘the hare must be grabbed when it is locked up’ (…) and there he married us,” says who explains that, after his general audience, he talked again and dismissed them with some words that they still cherish: “He grabs our hand and tells us ‘I’m going to tell you the secret of happy and lasting marriage: with you, bread and onion’ and there he left.”

Marked both by that message, which they interpret as a reminder of being together “in good times and in bad times” and by the closeness of a Francisco whom they last saw last September, when he blessed the marriage of another of his daughters, the Caballero Francos only have left, to “comply with him”, “thank him”.

“He was a pope who was not of this world. He already did what he had to do, he faced what he had to face and leaves us with a new world now to debate what we can solve,” Franco emphasizes about the first Latin American pontiff, whose death, far from crying, his family took with happiness because, he says, “he is today on the side of Jesus.”

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Without being clear why he was so generous, to the point of giving his approval to the giant mandala of tribute to the Abrahamic religions that today the family builds on the land of its tourist enterprise, also designed in honor of the Argentine, Franco insists that all that remains is to “tell the story”.

“We know we have to tell their story, our story. Not only to Catholics, to Christians, but to the people who approach us to listen. Many people come to tell them this and it’s what we have left to do,” he concludes.