“I WONDER WHAT Jesus would have made of it?” Those were the words of Tony Blair in a 1996 letter to Cardinal Basil Hume after the former Archbishop of Westminster had asked Mr Blair, then an Anglican and Leader of the Opposition, to stop receiving Communion when attending Mass with his family.

More than two decades later the restrictions on Communion for members of other Christian denominations married to Catholics remain a point of puzzlement and tension. Seven German bishops are asking the Vatican’s doctrinal body for a clarification on the matter (see Church in the World), after a majority of their colleagues voted to open up the possibility for some spouses in interchurch marriages to receive the Eucharist.