Melanie McDonagh (“When life means life”, 4 October) recounted the story of an Italian woman who was divorced and remarried and who asked her priest whether she might take Communion. In reply he said it was up to her conscience. Melanie McDonagh’s suggestion that the priest was, in essence, “subcontract [ing] the question to her” raises some interesting issues.First I would commend the priest’s advice, since it should be decided by one’s own conscience. No one else can decide that for us. Secondly, it emphasises the persistent mindset that the Church is some kind of overarching monarchy from which one has to request permission for one’s actions. Monarchies were discredited over 200 years ago in the French Revolution but that fact has not yet