Bishop Jean Laffitte, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, opened the academic year 2014-2015 of the Genoese section of the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy. The theme of his academic lecture, held on Wednesday, October 29th, in Genoa, was "Marriage and the Eucharist. Theological aspects."
 
The Secretary of the PCF, after studying 22 (i.e., one fifth of the cycle) of John Paul II’s 134 "General Audiences"—the beating heart of the renewal of sacramental theology and of the anthropology of marriage and the family—, spoke about the sacramental nature of marriage, paralleling the logic of the gift of the Eucharist and that of the nuptial gift.
 
At the end of the lecture Monsignor Laffitte then addressed the burning issue of Communion for the divorced and remarried Catholics, noting that "the Church is not within the logic of discrimination or punishment; it is noting a situation of objective impossibility: the reality of a second marriage objectively contradicts with the union of love between Christ and the Church, which the Eucharist signifies and renders present. If Christ has made a covenant with the couple in matrimony, He cannot make a second covenant that would contradict the first. The Lord is faithful. We understand—said Msgr. Laffitte—that this does not fully answer the question about the nature of the Eucharist, which, as we know, is also a remedy that transmits saving grace. However, the saving grace of the Eucharistic bread is not effective in all conditions in which it is received, but only in cases where those who receive the Body of Christ have the will (or willingness) to live in accordance with what Christ asks through the instructions of his Church and, consequently, to put an end to a situation that is incompatible (i.e. a second marriage or any other situation in serious contradiction with the divine commandments)."