Excerpt #37 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
A five-year-old girl could not take part of her First Communion rite because of Roman Catholic Church rules.
She suffers from celiac disease, which causes her to get sick from eating gluten, a protein in wheat and other grains.
She can safely eat rice.
The Archdiocese of Boston told her family that the church cannot substitute a rice Communion wafer for the traditional wheat one, citing 2,000 years of tradition and faith.
The girl’s family now worships at a Methodist church, where the rules on Holy Communion are more flexible.
Methodists believe the bread and wine are symbolic, not the actual transubstantiated body and blood of Jesus.
The Vatican takes the matter seriously enough that, in 1994, it issued rules for all bishops to follow.
Among them: “Special hosts (which do not contain gluten) are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.”
“We many are sharing one bread and becoming one with Christ. We can’t make different flavors for different folks and maintain that
theological reality,” said the minister of the girl’s original church.
The girl’s mother said that even if the church were to change its rules on Communion, the family’s decision to leave is permanent. “I believe Jesus would have made an exception,” she said.
The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion. – Elizabeth Cady Stanton