The Catholic Church's decision to allow Luciano Pavarotti a religious funeral even though he was divorced does not undermine doctrine on the subject, according to a top Italian Catholic commentator.
Don Antonio Sciortino, director of Italy's popular Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, also denied that the religious funeral held for the world-famous tenor guaranteed "salvation" for his soul.
Seeing Pavarotti given full honours at a funeral in a Modena church outraged many of Famiglia Cristiana's readers and prompted a flood of letters to the magazine. One of these called it "a real scandal", noting that divorce is a mortal sin for the Catholic Church.
According to Catholic doctrine, anyone who dies in mortal sin cannot go to heaven. While they are alive, divorced people are not allowed to take communion.
In a written response to the letters, Don Sciortino said: "A religious ceremony says nothing about the salvation of a soul, nor can it be interpreted as an acceptance of the choices made during the life of a believer".
The magazine director suggested that Church authorities "probably judged that not giving a religious funeral to a personality so prominent on the world stage would have been an even bigger scandal".
The Church normally allows funerals to all those who don't openly deny God and His commandments, he added.
The Vatican's position on who can have a religious funeral and who can't has been in the spotlight several times in Italy recently.
There was controversy earlier this year when a Catholic funeral was denied for Pierluigi Welby, a terminally ill man who asked for the respirator keeping him alive to be removed.
When a doctor complied with his wishes and Welby died, the Church's position appeared to be that he had committed suicide, which is also a mortal sin. Officials also noted that he was an affirmed atheist.
