German Catholic bishops will discuss controversial plans to allow Protestants married to Catholics to take communion with senior Vatican officials this week.

It comes after Germany's bishops voted overwhelmingly in favour of producing a guide, or pastoral handout, to allow a Protestant partner of a Catholic to receive the eucharist in some cases and under certain conditions.

But the Vatican rejected the plan, it emerged earlier this month, and now six German bishops will travel to Rome to discuss the issue.

They will meet with officials from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts at the Vatican on Thursday.

'A group of German cardinals and bishops will meet some dicastery heads and officials of the Roman Curia at the Vatican to deal with the theme of the eventual access to the Eucharist for non-Catholic spouses in mixed marriages,' a statement said announcing the meeting.

Three-quarters of the German bishops' conference in February approved developing a pastoral guide specifying that permission could be granted if, having made a 'serious examination' of conscience with a priest or another person with pastoral responsibilities, the spouse 'affirms the faith of the Catholic Church', wishes to end 'serious spiritual distress' and has a 'longing to satisfy a hunger for the eucharist'.

However seven German bishops led by Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne, wrote to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last month to say they believed the proposal to allow some Protestant spouses to receive communion contradicted Catholic doctrine, undermined Church unity and exceeded the competence of the bishops' conference.

Cardinal Müller called the proposal a 'rhetorical trick,' stressing that interdenominational marriage is 'not an emergency situation' and that 'neither the pope nor we bishops can redefine the sacraments as a means of alleviating mental distress and satisfying spiritual needs' as they are 'effective signs of the grace of God'.