It's a Metaphor!

by Cliopatria

I could be one of the last people to hear about this, judging by the fact that it was in my small, local newspaper this morning, and by the number of hits I got searching for" communion, gluten, invalid," but if originality were required, the blogosphere would collapse down to about a dozen blogs, plus us.....

In short, an eight-year old with a life-threatening intolerance of wheat gluten has been told that her first Roman Catholic communion was invalid because a rice cracker was substituted. Apparently this is a long-standing problem, stemming from the Church's decision that only an unleavened wheat product is sufficiently similar to the Last Supper communion to qualify: ten years ago the Roman Catholic Church decided to stop accepting gluten-intolerant candidates for priesthood because they, like alcoholics, could not safely carry out the rituals. It has also come up in Asian Catholic communities, where the call to replace the 'staff of life' with something resembling the local staple has been a continuing issue. But the Roman Catholic Church has stood firm.

This is particularly acute in this case, as it is a life-threatening condition. In the Jewish tradition, only two commandments cannot be broken even under life-threatening conditions: idolatry and adultery. There are very clear standards that require the ill or infirm to refrain from religious practices that would endanger their health, though the passage on what a pregnant woman has to endure in order to break the Yom Kippur fast is pretty rigorous.

For the sake of fairness, I will note that I have the same problem with the Israeli Orthodox Rabbinate's decision to carry out 'recircumcision' rituals on Ethiopian Jews whose circumcision was done in good faith under Ethiopian (pre-Rabbinic) Judaism. Yes, ritual is important. But it isn't magic and it isn't computer programming: procedural precision has got to be secondary to intent. Ritual is a tool by which we express a relationship with the divine, not a tool by which we require something of the divine. Unless there is a significant theological distinction being made, some variation in practice is tolerable. If God's word is literal law, we are all damned.

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Michael C Tinkler - 8/22/2004

Well, it depends

You see, precisely because the whole is available in each kind, many parishes still follow the old tradition on most occasions and only give the Eucharist in one kind (the Host) on the average Sunday. On the other hand the first communion special eucharists that I've been to DO typically give communion in both kinds. I read several articles looking to see if there was any mention of it, but didn't.

By the way, rice wine doesn't work either - it has to be fermented grape. Interestingly, there is a non-alcoholic fermented grape (not grape juice, but wine that has had the alcohol removed) called mustum which is permissible (most frequently used, I've heard, by recovered alcoholic priests).

Ralph E. Luker - 8/21/2004

But one question, Michael. If she had taken what she thought was first communion, she would have taken it in both kinds. If so, wouldn't then the drinking of the properly instituted wine have constituted first communion, even if the ricey bread didn't work?

Ralph E. Luker - 8/21/2004

This is very helpful, Michael. Thanks.

Michael C Tinkler - 8/21/2004

Oh, don't worry, JD - Catholics have wandered in these fields before; the mother, from the interviews I've read, is as ignorant of theology and canon law as, say, the journalists. It would help if the bishop had a better public affairs officer!

In transubstationist theology (yes, entirely ANTI-symbolic), Christ is present body and soul, humanity and divinity, in the Body (formerly wheat, with the unfortunate accidents of wheat for the gluten-impaired) and the Blood (formerly wine).

Her first full communion will be when she takes the tiniest (entirely safe) sip from the Eucharistic cup.

Now you're welcome to reject the theology, but that's what Catholics believe. Any bit of either part is fine. She will be accomodated that way. Admittedly, one whole wing of Catholic dissedence in the pre-Reformation and eventual Reform movement was based in Utraquism (the demand for both species of the Eucharist as the only valid way for communion), but the Roman Church has permitted communion in both kinds while insisting that communion in either kind was valid.

To put this in terms more immediately apparent to non-Catholic academics, the girl's first communion was invalid. Big deal. It's like getting a blank diploma while walking across stage when one has to make up a course in order to graduate.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/21/2004

I'm just spoiled by the Rabbinic tradition, where every conceivable variation on the theme is discussed and exceptions and variation in practice and inconsistencies are debated and justified or rejected, and the whole tradition is much more bottom-up. This is precisely the kind of situation in which the rabbis would probably say "yes, wheat is preferable, but since danger to life is involved, rice is acceptable, as long as it looks like a wheat cracker and the wine (which can serve as the entire communion as it did for centuries when laity were forbidden to share in the bread) is drunk with it." And yes, there might be some debate about it, but once some communities started to do it that way (as many Catholic priests have made individual exceptions, according to one celiac page I read) then the exception gets written into the normal practice.

The Catholic way is so different from how I understand religious process. It's funny, too, because I generally have an easier time talking to Catholics about religion, as their emphasis on deeds and ritual is much closer to Judaism than to is the Protestant approach, and the tendency to argue philosophically and legally, as well.

Ralph E. Luker - 8/21/2004

I don't think that official church doctrine will ever agree with you that to speak of bread and wine as body and blood is to speak metaphorically. Transubstantiation has been dogmatically enshrined since prior to the Reformation and theoretically, at least, the church never repudiates or reverses a position once enunciated _ex cathedra_. Essentially, all doctrine is understood to be inherent in prior teaching as the fullest development of a great oak is already inherent in an acorn. There has to be some place for latitude in this case, however, because it is difficult to square its specific ruling with the consistent pro-life position which the church has taken.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/21/2004

Indeed.

One of our more religious Cliopatriarchs could do us all a great service by tracing the history of transubstantiation doctrine. I lose track after the Luther-Zwingli debate. But it seems to me that the Catholic Church would consider a more flexible attitude towards something that has caused such trouble in the past.

Ralph E. Luker - 8/21/2004

From what commentary I've seen about this case,I'm not the first person to observe that the decision of the church seems particularly unreasonable in light of the doctrine of transubstantiation. That is, if by the words of institution, the bread is transformed into the body of Christ -- so that it may still look, feel, taste, and smell like bread, but the substance of it has become the body of Christ -- then it seems even more unreasonable to insist on a wheat based substance, even when it threatens the life of the person taking communion.