A senior Catholic cardinal has set himself at odds with bishops in his home country of Germany by speaking out against allowing divorced and remarried people to receive Holy Communion.

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has described liberal bishops who advocate change as "the blind leading the blind".

He says in an interview with the Italian Catholic magazine Il Timone: "We are called to help people, little by little, to reach the fullness of their relationship with God, but we can not make concessions. The Church is a living body, the development is a movement to better understand the depths of the mysteries. But you can not exceed the magisterium statements when it comes to statements that relate to the divine Catholic faith revealed."

In the interview, translated by L'Espresso, Müller warns Catholics not to fall into the trap of believing that "if love dies, then the marriage bond is dead."

He says: "These are sophistries: the Word of God is very clear and the Church does not accept the secularisation of marriage. The task of priests and bishops is not that of creating confusion, but of bringing clarity."

The cardinal, who is from Germany, spoke out as a group of his fellow German bishops endorsed Communion for the remarried. 

In a new statement reported by the Catholic Herald, agreed by the permanent council of the bishops' conference, the bishops say that the remarried can receive Communion without resolving to live "as brother and sister". They say this is possible through "differentiated solutions which are appropriate to the individual case".

An accompanying statement says the solution will be found through "a decision-making process, accompanied by a priest", the Herald reports.

It notes that the permanent council does not include Müller.

The split between the German bishops is the latest fall-out from the Pope's synod on the family and his resulting exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. Earlier this week, Catholic laity in Malta condemned their own bishops for appearing to endorse a relaxation of the traditional rules that remarried Catholics cannot receive communion unless they live as brother and sister.