Spanish Oddities
Coeliac sufferer refused gluten-free wafer for his First Communion in Spain
By m.p. - Mar 13, 2008 - 5:11 PM
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A young boy who suffers Coeliac disease, caused by a reaction to a gluten protein found in wheat, has been refused permission by the Church for gluten-free wafers to be used at his First Communion. His parents, María José Martín and Javier Campo, told the newspaper ‘Heraldo de Aragón,’ that both their parish priest in Huesca City and the vicar general of the diocese refused to allow their son to receive the Host at his Communion in the form of a wafer made of maize flour supplied by the Coeliacs Association. The priets based their decision on a text issued by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, in 1995, stating that wafers must contain at least a tiny amount of gluten in order to be ‘valid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.’
The boy’s parents were also denied permission for their son to take grape juice instead of communion wine.
The Huesca vicar general, José Antonio Satué, said the sacraments are extremely sacred to the Church and there can be no exceptions on how they should be administered. Neither the parish nor the Bishopric, he said, has the authority to provide a gluten-free wafer as an alternative, and commented that he didn’t think it would be illegal for children to take ‘half a sip’ of wine at their communion.
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