Hospitality, the Eucharist, and Celiac Disease
Collectively, our Communion procedures need some work
My chromosomally-gifted daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease two days before Thanksgiving in 2021. For an Italian foodie family, it’s been a wild ride, including a letter sent to every bishop in the U.S. about celiac disease and the Eucharist.
We’ve spent the last two years trying to make it safe for my girly-girl to receive the Eucharist. In our parish, the volunteers at our typical Mass time know to expect us, and we’ve worked out a relatively smooth routine. But even going to another Mass time introduces variables.
This summer, we spent two weekends on the road. We had great homilies both weekends and I have good things to say about the parishes overall, but this needs to be said:
Church, we do not know how to deal with celiac disease and the Eucharist.
I’m writing this hoping that it will reach people who are lay Eucharistic ministers, boots-on-ground in this issue, and also those in charge of worship, setting procedures.
For all of you, this is what you need to know about celiac disease:
1. It is an autoimmune disease. IOW, in a person with celiac disease, gluten exposure causes the body to attack itself— in this case, in the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed. Short term it causes pain and GI consequences. Long-term, it can cause cancer and malnutrition.
2. There is a difference between gluten-sensitive/gluten allergy and celiac disease. The first two categories of people might feel bad if exposed to gluten, but it won’t hurt them long-term. Celiac disease is a different story.
3. People with celiac disease can’t have french fries at most restaurants because although the fries are GF, they’re fried in oil that has also fried breaded chicken, etc., and then the fries have gluten on them. This is one example of what we call “cross-contamination.” It also applies to hands, utensils, and surfaces. Whatever touches gluten has gluten on it.
4. Within celiac disease, different people have different sensitivities. Some people get “glutened” simply by kissing a spouse who has had gluten. My daughter does not appear to be that sensitive, thankfully, but I’ve been on the boards. I’ve seen the stories.
5. Hand sanitizer DOES NOT REMOVE GLUTEN.* It kills germs, and gluten is not a germ. Gluten is a sticky substance that causes the body of a person with celiac disease to attack itself. Only washing with soap and water removes gluten.
6. Therefore, you cannot handle regular hosts, sanitize your hands, and turn around and handle a low-gluten host. For gluten sensitivity, it might be okay. It is not okay for a person with celiac.
7. You also cannot stick the low-gluten pyx inside the paten of regular hosts, because the pyx is now cross-contaminated.
6. You cannot serve regular hosts to 100 people and then pick up the gluten-free pyx and serve a low-gluten host to a person with celiac disease, because your hands are now contaminated; you are exposing them to gluten.
7. If you want to offer the cup as an alternative, it has to be a clean, dedicated gluten-free cup, that no gluten-consuming person has sipped from. And it has to be poured separately from the wine that had the fragment of host dropped in it, because otherwise the cup and/or the precious blood is contaminated.
8. The best practice for the Eucharist for celiacs would involve a dedicated Communion line, paten, and minister who has not touched a regular-gluten host AT ALL.
9. In the absence of that, which I acknowledge is steep logistically, the second-best practice would be that people with celiac disease are served by a single minister at the beginning of Communion, before they have touched any/many regular hosts.
All this may seem like a hassle to you if you have no food issues. But think of it in terms of hospitality—a Christian virtue— and think of it in terms of placing barriers to the Eucharist. Through those twin lenses, it should be obvious that in a church whose central identity IS the Eucharist, this is an issue we must grapple with.
I'm curious, when you wrote to the bishops did you get any response besides whose obviously pulled out of the assistant's form file?