Girl With Digestive Disease Denied Communion

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[Lauren M]

Thanks for sharing, this is something I have a vested interest in, as I'm a Catholic as well.

That said, I think it's ridiculous. I will not put my health at risk with a "low-gluten" host, and I will not even take wine at mass because there is a risk of contamination. I feel that the church is being really stubborn and closed-minded about this. celiac disease is a serious disease. Personally I know a few Catholics with celiac disease and none of them have settled for the low-gluten host. I'm curious if anyone has, and if so, if they have had any adverse reactions?

- Lauren

[Jnkmnky]

The Catholic church views Celiac Disease as a "scandalous" disorder along with alcoholism. Neither group can receive Holy Orders. What are you going to do? I'm Catholic, my children are being raised Catholic. The thing to do is not get upset. Getting upset, rioting, picketing, etc will solve nothing. Just Pray about it. The wisdom of God will be revealed to the leadership of the church in time. I think the current "rules" are being imposed due to fear. Fear that the mystery of the bread and wine turning to the body and blood of Christ will be questioned if the "recipe" is deemed faulty. Haha! Ok. Seriously, they're concerned and we should do more to help them understand that we believe this mystery can happen in a rice cracker. The Church offers us so much reassurance, I think it's time we offered them some! Anyone recall Jesus saying "do this in memory of me"??? Was he talking about the "recipe" for the bread?? .....Now add two well beaten eggs to the WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR..... shesh! Don't let it get to you. It will be resolved eventually. Things move at a snail's pace in the Catholic church, but they do move.

[jerseyangel]

Hi--I am a Catholic, also, and I feel the same way. I can't understand why they are so unbending on this. I do not take Communion any more. I hate that I may never again, but I will not make myself sick for days or weeks. I have not tried or suggested a low gluten host because I react to the tiniest amount. There was a thread a while back where a few of us talked about this.

Ms Sillyak--Thanks for posting that article. I was following it in the paper while it was going on. The last I heard was that the mom went to her bishop and asked him to take the matter to the Pope and he said no. Haven't heard anything since.

[debmidge]

If I recall, the mother got her answer which was no, and the church officicals decided not to address this issue at this time. Or something like that, so it got tabled for another time.

[jerseyangel]

Thanks

[RiceGuy]

Someone should point out to them that if they are using modern day wheat, then ALL WAFERS are violating the "rules". The wheat grown today is genetically very different from what it used to be, and for them to say it must contain gluten is not necessarily correct, since the gluten protein which causes the problem wasn't in the wheat at the time of Christ.

The wheat back then had two or four sets of chromosomes. Today, due to hybridization, is has as many as 12 or more! Take that to them and see what they say...

Here's a link of interest:

Open Original Shared Link

[celiac mom]

This is my first post and I guess I am a little late in this discussion, but my catholic church has started to dedicate a cup of wine for celiacs to be drank before anyone else does. It has made my son (15 yr old celiac) feel much more a part of the mass as he wasn't taking communion. I am not sure why the change has come about, but I for one am grateful to our parish. Maybe the church is starting to move in the right direction? There's always hope.

[jerseyangel]

Hi Celiac Mom--welcome to the group! Thats great news about your church and for your son. I was talking to my mom the other day--she lives in Central NY--she told her priest about me and he said that when I visit, he would get wheat free wafers for me to receive Communion. There is already a member of that Church that only takes the wine and does so before anyone else. I think it very much depends on the individual Priest and how they handle it.

[codetalker]

Hi--I am a Catholic, also, and I feel the same way. I can't understand why they are so unbending on this. I do not take Communion any more. I hate that I may never again, but I will not make myself sick for days or weeks. I have not tried or suggested a low gluten host because I react to the tiniest amount. There was a thread a while back where a few of us talked about this.

Ms Sillyak--Thanks for posting that article. I was following it in the paper while it was going on. The last I heard was that the mom went to her bishop and asked him to take the matter to the Pope and he said no. Haven't heard anything since.

I was raised Catholic. Although I am non-practicing now and my awareness of current Church teachings are no doubt out-of-date, I nonetheless have still thought that it was fairly obvious why there should be such an "unbending" attitude by Church leaders. I have always hesitated to comment on this because I did not want to offend anyone. However, considering the tenor of comments from Catholics above, I will mention it.

While I was growing up, the Church was teaching that the communion wafer and wine, once consecrated, actually became the body and blood of Christ. They were no longer what they used to be (i.e. bread and wine). This is different from Protestant theology which sees the consecrated bread and wine as only symbolic of the body and blood of Christ.

This change of inherent nature was called transsubstantiation and caused the wafer and wine to become extremely holy. For a short time, I was an altar boy and we were told that, if a wafer fell to the floor, we should not pick it up. Instead, the priest would follow a special ritual to pick it up. This was due to the transsubstantiated nature of what the bread had become.

With that as the background, the problem would seem fairly obvious. This is a case of reality intruding on doctrine. If the wafer, in particular, has been transsubtantiated into the body of Christ by its consecration, then there should be no way that partaking of it during a holy sacrament would cause any detrimental effect on the partaker.

Unfortunately, Catholic celiacs who partake of communion have a gluten reaction when the wafer contains wheat or gluten from any source. This causes a detrimental effect on the partaker and indicates that transsubstantiation has not taken place. That would be in direct contradiction of at least the Church teachings being taught when I was growing up. Further, this tends to support the Protestant belief that the consecrated bread and wine are symbolic, rather than the actual body and blood.

While younger Church leaders may be taking a more liberal approach to this doctrine of transsubstantiation, there are no doubt many older Church leaders who grew up during my generation and before that still believe the original doctrine. For them, the only way out of this would be to consider celiac disease as "scandalous" (as mentioned by a poster above) and to deny celiacs any options. The alternative would be to recognize that celiacs are having a gluten reaction and to rethink a very fundamental part of Church doctrine.

Again, I hope no one has been offended by this. That was never my intent.

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[jerseyangel]

Codetalker--I take no offense at all to your post. I also was brought up in the Catholic Church and was taught that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. In addition to the host having to be picked up in a certain way (if dropped), the churches have an extra drain which goes directly outside, so that the unused wine (blood) can go back into the ground--not down the regular drain. I saw this at my church when I lived in Georgia. When I said that they were "unbending", I was refering to the fact that (eventually) they changed the rules for fasting. I did not take into consideration that recognizing that Celiacs react to gluten (in a consecrated host) would be the same as saying that a basic Church doctrine is untrue. This is very different than changing the rules regarding, for example, the amount of time one should fast before Communion. Actually, your post was thought provoking and the words "quiet acceptance" and "scandalous" as put forth by the Church regarding Celiacs are a bit disturbing.

[celiac3270]

Oh, this was from about a year ago... there are a number of other threads on it in this section, such as (but not limited to) these:

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

[jerseyangel]

Thanks, celiac3270, for posting those. I've been reading them and I found the different opinions interesting.

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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