Catholic church prohibits gluten-free wafers as Jesus’s body must have gluten

A communique from the Vatican, as reported by The Washington Post, lays out the guidelines for what must be in Communion wafers, and that means that there MUST BE SOME GLUTEN.  (Gluten is a complex of proteins in grains that allow bready stuff to rise and hold its shape.) This dictum apparently isn’t new, but has been reconfirmed in light of people’s recent tendency to avoid gluten. As the Post reports:

The letter drew attention from media outlets around the globe, but it actually reaffirmed earlier guidelines saying that bread and wafers must have at least some gluten in them. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops already has guidelines allowing churches to use low-gluten wafers and nothing will change in American Catholic churches, said Andrew Menke, executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship.

“Absolutely nothing has changed,” Menke said in a statement. “The ‘new guidance’ from the Vatican is simply a reminder to bishops that they need to be attentive to the bread and wine that is used for Mass, making sure that it’s consistent with the Church’s requirements.”

Guidelines are also given by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

The most recent Church teaching on the use of mustum and low-gluten hosts at Mass remains the letter from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. . . on July 24, 2003 (Prot. n. 89/78-17498), which was addressed to the Presidents of Conferences of Bishops. In that letter, pastors and the faithful are reminded that for bread to be valid matter for the Eucharist, it must be made solely of wheat, contain enough gluten to effect the confection of bread, be free of foreign materials, and unaffected by any preparation or baking methods which would alter its nature. The amount of gluten necessary for validity in such bread is not determined by minimum percentage or weight, though hosts which have no gluten are considered invalid matter for Mass. (In the Roman Rite, the bread prepared for the Eucharist must also be unleavened.)

This is of course a problem for people with celiac disease, for if they can’t tolerate even a small amount of gluten in a wafer, they’re plumb out of luck. After all, theologians, who get paid to figure out this kind of stuff, have studied the scriptures assiduously and decided, “YES, there must be gluten” (my emphasis):

The Catholic Church teaches that the practice of the Eucharist should be in continuity with Jesus, who ate wheat bread and drank grape wine, describing them as his body and blood.

“Christ did not institute the Eucharist as rice and sake, or sweet potatoes and stout,” said Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at Catholic University.

Some theologians have argued the bread and wine are simply symbolic, but the Catholic Church does not consider the elements to be symbols. It teaches that Jesus himself instituted the bread and the wine during the Passover meal, and churches should follow his lead.

“It may seem a small thing to people,” Pecknold said. “But the Catholic Church has spent 2,000 years working out how to be faithful to Christ even in the smallest things. To be vitally and vigorously faithful … is something which is simply integral to what it means to be Catholic.”

Bread and wafers “must be unleavened, purely of wheat, and recently made so that there is no danger of decomposition,” the letter from the Vatican states. “Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.” However, low-gluten wafers and bread may be used, it says.

But apparently most sufferers from celiac disease are okay, as there’s not much gluten in a wafer after all. You’d have to eat handfuls (or is it “handsful”?) of them to get sick:

In 2004, Alessio Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research at the University of Maryland, said that one of the Benedictine Sisters’ low-gluten wafers contained such low gluten that someone with celiac disease would have to consume 270 wafers daily to reach a danger point.

“You’d have to be very devout or really excited about going to church to eat that much at communion,” said Claire Baker, spokeswoman for Beyond Celiac, an advocacy organization for people with celiac disease. “You don’t eat communion wafers like you eat crackers.”

A regular wafer contains approximately 22 milligrams of gluten, according to registered dietitian Nancy Patin Falini. Wafers that contain under 10 milligrams of gluten are considered low-gluten.

This all reminds me of rabbis deciding that Passover matzos must be made from scratch and baked within 18 minutes after the process starts—lest yeast get in there and the matzos be “leavened.” That wouldn’t be kosher! The bakery is also cleaned out between batches. The 18 minutes was determined by oodles of rabbis intensely pondering scripture—and I suppose biology, though I’m dubious).

It’s all nuts.

h/t: Diane G.