Last week, for the first time in his pontificate, Pope Francis retracted a comment. But in between the comment and the retraction, he awakened a debate over marriage, canon law and modern culture which may well continue for some time.

Speaking at a Q&A session at the Diocese of Rome’s annual congress, the Pope said: “The great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say ‘Yes, for the rest of my life!’ but they don’t know what they are saying.”

At this point, those who weren’t sure of how marriage validity works turned to the canon lawyers; the canon lawyers said that, with all due respect, the Pope’s words couldn’t be accurate.