Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio is president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, which top Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. describes as “more or less the Vatican’s equivalent of an attorney general’s office.” Mr. Allen reports that Cardinal Coccopalmerio has made public his view that in some cases divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive Communion.

In a Vatican briefing today, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio said that in cases of “urgency and necessity,” such Catholics ought to be readmitted.
Coccopalmerio offered a specific example of a woman who married a man who had been abandoned by his first wife, through no fault of his own, and left to care for three children. The woman who married him, and who is now helping to care for his children, is considered to be in an “irregular” situation.
“She cannot abandon that union or those children,” he said. “In these cases, we have to do something.”

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is one of two Italian cardinals who have come forward on this question in the last day. The second Italian cardinal, Dionigi Tettamanzi, agrees.

In his interview today, Tettamanzi said he’d be open to Communion for the divorced and remarried under three conditions:
The sacraments are seen as “signs of the mercy of God” Confusion is avoided about the indissolubility of marriage The people are involved in Christian formation for adults Such an approach, he said, would guarantee that allowing communion for divorced and remarried Catholics is “in the necessary context of the proclamation and witness of the Gospel.”

Mr. Allen cautions that “there remains strong opposition to any change to the current discipline excluding divorced and remarried Catholics from Communion, including some of the Vatican’s most senior personnel.” He cites Cardinal George Pell, of Australia, who said last night: “Some may wish Jesus might have been a little softer on divorce, but he wasn’t. And I’m sticking with him.”

— Michael R. Strain is a resident scholar and economist at the American Enterprise Institute. You can write to him on Twitter at twitter.com/MichaelRStrain.