His First Communion/Also His Last

By Kelly Fordon

My son Peter is celebrating his First Communion this month.  It’s a monumental day for Roman Catholics because it is the first day we are allowed to receive the body of Christ during communion.  And when Catholics say “body of Christ” we mean it.  We believe that the bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ during the Mass, a miracle that we call transubstantiation.

Except that Peter, who will go through the ceremony, won’t actually be able to receive the body of Christ, because the body of Christ is made out of wheat.  Peter has celiac disease and cannot consume wheat or gluten.  Canon Law 924 stipulates that there must be some wheat in the wafer because there was wheat in the bread Jesus consumed at the Last Supper. Because of the growing prevalence of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that, ironically, is quite prevalent in Irish people, the church has allowed a group of Benedictine nuns to produce a “low gluten” wafer. The wafer has a safe amount of gluten in it—less than 0.01%--so theoretically, Peter could eat it and he might not get sick. Our parish priest asked him if he wanted to taste it and see if he could tolerate the low-gluten wafer, and Peter, who has learned to be cautious after years of violent spates of vomiting, said, “Why in the world would I do that?”   

My feeling exactly.  I know many celiacs who have left the church over this issue.  Almost every other Christian denomination offers a rice wafer substitute. The whole notion that Jesus would care strikes me as ludicrous.  If Jesus were around, I know he wouldn’t want my son risking his health.  It is interesting to conjecture about how this would play out if the wafer was made of peanuts.  How many people would risk anaphylactic shock to partake in a low-peanut wafer?  Though the priest is going to give Peter a sip of the wine or blood of Christ on his First Communion, there’s no way I’m going to send my kid up to the altar every week for a swig of wine. 

For that reason, his First Communion may also be his last.

I come from a long line of staunch Irish Catholics.  Over the years, for whatever reason, I have been able to justify the fact that I pick through the tenets of the Catholic Church like a jewelry maker selecting beads.  I guess I figured I was far from the only person here in America who is doing that.  Also, I believed that one day the church would come around.  

The microscopic amount of gluten in the wafer isn’t my problem. My problem is the Church’s inane reasoning.  Suddenly the faulty logic on this issue is leading me to question everything about the Institution.  Who is making up these crazy rules? Surely it isn’t Jesus, the guy who said “suffer the little children to come unto me.”  I know one child who won’t be able to do that and I can just picture Jesus up in heaven shaking his head.