- guardian.co.uk, Thursday April 27 2000 01.34 BST
Fr Claudio Menichetti, 84, shocked his congregation by denouncing the 68-year-old widow as an adulterer just as she opened her mouth to receive the eucharist. The repercussions of his act are rippling beyond the hamlet of Benano, near Orvieto in central Italy.
Cardinal Ersilio Tonini has thrown his support behind the priest amid condemnation of what is seen as the Roman Catholic church's inconsistent policing of modern mores.
The parishioner, who has not been named, moved to Rome and fell in love with another man after her husband died 26 years ago. They live together but never married.
She returned to Benano to attend mass with friends on Easter Sunday and queued for Communion. When it was her turn, Fr Menichetti withheld the host and explained his motive.
"It is true," he said later, "I denied her communion for religious reasons. That woman is living with a man without having tied the bond of marriage."
It emerged that the two had clashed 41 years ago, when she turned up for her wedding wearing a sleeveless dress and he sent her home for a jacket.
The parishioner said she thought it was permissible to receive Communion even while technically living in sin. But Cardinal Tonini, 85, insisted: "Matrimony is a sacrament fundamental to Christian life. It is written in the gospels so do not expect the church to change the rules."
There was uproar in Sicily recently when an 80-year-old priest refused to hear the first confession of an 11-year-old boy with Down's syndrome, saying that the boy did not know the difference between good and evil.
