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My MIL has been GF for many months now, occassionally cheating, but I gaurantee she cheats ever week at Mass.
I mean seriously, Jesus served bread, so the church must serve wheat bread? What if Jesus' bread happened to be made with sorghum or other GF flours??!? This is insanity!
This of course as my husband and I debate which type of church to raise the kids in.
this is a typical issue for those people where religion is all about obeying all the rules (literally), than living a life according to the spirit and deep feelings and thoughts of the religion.
Personally I don't see what is wrong in alternating a habit of ritual a little if this makes you ill. I thought it was quite common now to use gluten free hosties in the (roman) catholic church.
"As the sense of identity shifts from the imaginary person to your real being as presence awareness, the life of suffering dissolves like mist before the rising sun"
Yes, the Catholic church requires that the communion host have wheat in it. Congregants with celiac disease can just take the wine, and it is considered to be full communion. (I'm not sure if that is safe from cross-contamination if the host is dipped into the wine, however). The real problem is for celiac priests, because the priests must take both the bread and the wine.
There is a group of nuns in Missouri who have developed a very low-gluten communion wafer that the Catholic church accepts.
I'm not Catholic, but I researched this a bit when I wanted to bring some alternatives to my Baptist pastor. My pastor told me to just bring my own. Being low church is definitely easier than being high church when it comes to communion!
At first I stopped receiving the Host and was only drinking the wine. I didn't like doing that, fearful of catching something. I called the pastor and his only suggestion was to take the wine. I was at the hospital one day visiting my aunt when the Eucharistic Minister came in to give her Communion. She asked if I also wanted to receive and I told her I couldn't and why. It happened again the following week. I was told then that they had a meeting because of what I informed them of and now offer gluten free hosts at the hospital.
I also called the office of the Bishop explaining the issue of gluten intolerances. I spoke with secretary. She told me that I was the first person who had called about this. Imagine that. She was going to speak with the Bishop and get back to me, but never did. I took a chance on receiving the host and was not bothered by it. So now I have been receiving for about 6 weeks with no problems. I kind of church hop and every church I go to, I noticed every single person there receives. So, either there is not enough to bother most people or they just don't think about it. Could it be that most Catholics are not gluten intolerant?
Italy has one of the highest rates of celiac in the world and tests all infants for it. I shocks me their own Church is not enlightened on this issue, and a silly one at that!
I have done some reading on this subject as well. Although the official position of the Catholic church is that substitutions are not acceptable, some churches will make them, quietly. In some protestant denominations, GF wafers are marked by being wrapped in foil, or if there are several priests administering the elements, one station will be designated GF. My first experience with this was over the holidays, and I chose not to participate because I felt more conspicuous bringing my own stuff up than I did just sitting in the pew. In the future I will try to plan better so I don't "stick out." As far as I know, I'm the only GF person in our congregation, so this is an issue we haven't had to deal with before, but the pastor has been very agreeable.
Since I've stopped eating bread, I now bring my own pancake portion for communion. Nobody has said anything and it tastes better! I'm not Catholic, though.
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
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