Pope Benedict said on Sunday only the pure of heart could receive communion, a day after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi joked that the Church should extend it to those who have divorced and remarried.
Italian newspapers had reported that Berlusconi, attending a ceremony in Sardinia, asked a bishop offering communion when the Church planned to change the rules for people who remarried after divorce, who are barred from receiving communion.
"You should turn to a higher power than me," replied the priest, according to newspapers....