The Vatican’s head official on doctrinal matters has reaffirmed that Catholics in irregular marital unions after divorce cannot receive communion, but he urged that this means it is “all the more imperative” to show “pastoral concern” for them.

“The path indicated by the Church is not easy for those concerned,” Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig M-ller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said of Catholics who have divorced and remarried civilly.

“Yet they should know and sense that the Church as a community of salvation accompanies them on their journey.”