Communion Invalidated - Wafer Contained No Wheat

In New Jersey, a little girl's first Holy Communion has been invalidated. Why? Because it contained no wheat. Why didn't it? Because she has a digestive disorder that could cause her to fall seriously ill if she does consume wheat gluten. Roman Catholic officials refuse to make any exception for her.

Newsday reports:

"In my mind, I think they must not understand celiac," said Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman, 30. "It's just not a viable option. How does it corrupt the tradition of the Last Supper? It's just rice versus wheat." It's more than that, according to church doctrine, which holds that communion wafers must have at least some unleavened wheat, as did the bread served at the Last Supper.

"This is not an issue to be determined at the diocesan or parish level, but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority," said Bishop John M. Smith. "Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist," Smith said in a prepared statement released Thursday by the diocese.

The church’s rules are pretty clear: no wheat, no communion. In secular circumstances, an exception could easily be made. When human rules created by humans to serve human needs hit a conflict, it’s a straight-forward matter for other humans to create exceptions to serve those conflicting needs.

Here, however, we are not dealing with mere human rules — Catholics believe that Jesus’ bread had wheat in it, so therefore must the communion host today. This is very similar to the argument that Jesus was male, therefore all priests today must be male. Humans can’t carve out exceptions to standards originally created by God, right?

That, however, is exactly what is wrong with religious systems like this. They don’t serve human needs; instead, they serve some abstract ideal created by some humans and then imposed upon others. This is how people’s lives get sacrificed in the name of religion — after all, it is the religious ideals which are important, not the people. Thus, if Haley Waldman wants to take communion, she must risk sacrificing her life as well.

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