Christ powerless over rice, Catholic church says
An eight-year-old celiac sufferer in New Jersey has had her First Communion
revoked after the Church learned that the host used in the ceremony was made from rice flour, not wheat flour.
The girl suffers from a disorder that makes gluten consumption potentially fatal. The Church, which offers
low-gluten hosts, insists on following church doctrine, which teaches that hosts must be made of wheat, in keeping with Church tradition. Even the low-gluten hosts can be harmful to some celiac sufferers, though, and the Church requires that they either drink wine instead of taking the host or abstain from Communion entirely.
Now, at the risk of sounding flippant, I have to wonder at this. The point of Holy Communion, within the Roman Catholic faith, is that the host and wine are transformed into the literal body and blood of Jesus. Why can God transform only wheat-based hosts and not rice-based hosts? Is rice somehow Christ's Kryptonite, or is this an example of a Church sticking too stridently to tradition?
August 13, 2004 12:02 PM
Irreverence
> Is rice somehow Christ’s Kryptonite, or is this an
> example of a Church sticking too stridently to
> tradition?
I don't think it much matters. The Church is allowed to make their own rules and expect their priests and faithful to stick to them.
We make reasonable accomodations to wheat-intolerant folks in the form of receiving in the species of wine only. The same was offered to this girl's mother, and she refused. This proves to us that she doesn't care about her daughter's communion, but in making a point about the Catholic Church.
From the article "Church rule: Communion of ailing girl invalid," published in the Asbury Park Press on 8/12/04 (http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1024678,00.html):
She was also offered the opportunity to complete the sacrament using low-alcohol wine, but Pelly-Waldman said she feels that any amount of alcohol for a child "is inappropriate."
That doesn't sound to me like a mother who "doesn't care about her daughter's communion."
