Archives for 2004

This story, via Atrios, is maddening:

An 8-year-old girl who has a rare digestive disorder and cannot consume wheat has had her first Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained none.

Now, Haley Waldman’s mother is pushing the Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican to make an exception, saying the sacrament should be changed to accommodate the girl’s condition.

Roman Catholic doctrine holds that communion wafers must have at least some unleavened wheat, as did the bread served at the Last Supper of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion.

In May, the girl received her her first Holy Communion from a priest who offered her a wheat-free host. But last month, the diocese told the priest that Waldman’s sacrament would not be validated by the church because of the substitute wafer.

Along with the story is a poll, asking whether or not an exception should be made. So far89% say yes, but what is disturbing is that 7% say no,and 4% can’t even make up their damn minds.

At any rate, this is the definitive response to the Bishop in question. Personally, I know where the Bishop can stick his wafers.

*** Update ***

The man formerly known as Mean Mr. Mustard disagrees:

My response: oh, relax, Cole. You’re gonna strain something.

You may think the Bishop is just being a mean old Catholic prick because he thinks little girls with digestive disorders ought to go to hell, but allow me to suggest that this is more of a matter of following procedure and the Church’s rules of authority than simply being mean to sick kids.

I admit to not being up on all the nuances of transubstantiation, but it still seems clear to me that this is fairly cut and dry as far as what the bishop can do. According to bedrock doctrine of the church, communion requires unleavened wheat. Under that rule, a person can no more recieve communion with a substitute than someone could, say, go faster than the speed of light. You might just as easily say Einstein is a heartless bastard because he doesn’t “allow” any poor child that wants to and that has a real good reason to violate a law of the universe. From what I can tell, the bishop isn’t making a choice based on what he wants. He’s making a determination based on what is.

1.) The Einstein bit with the laws of the universe stuff is just stupid- so let’s dismiss that right away. We are talking about a man-made rule in a man-made institution, not the law of gravity. A snarky line, but utterly pointless.

2.) I have never heard anything about God commanding that communion wafers be made of a certain material. Other than a church rule, a man-made decision to emulate the ingredients of the bread of the last supper, the communion wafer might as well have been a ‘Nilla wafer. My church serves grape juice instead of wine. Guess I am bound to hell and I didn’t even know it.

3.) I know what they are teaching with the whole transubstantiation bit, what with the elements of the Eucharist becoming the actual body and blood of Christ. It makes a nice story and everything, but I am going to go out on a limb here- other than for matters of symbolism and as a re-affirmation of faith, the communion wafer does not really change physical properties and become the actual flesh of Christ. I know what they teach you, I know what they have you believing, and I know what they have stated was doctrinal, but I am just not buying it.

You can flame away, call me an apostate, but I am with Russ and his laws of the universe bit here. At least the laws of biology. And if you insist onflaming me anyway about something I refuse to believe and something on which the burden of proof is up to you, you can come on over to my house when you are done and turn water into wine.

4.) Could a less pedantic Priest taken it upon himself to not make a damned stink over this and to just use a substitute wafer without anyone else knowing. And don’t feed me the “God would know” crap. My God would approve of that- after all, God has also seen Catholic priests spend the better part of the last century breaking the rules of man and God to bugger young children, run over homeless people, knock up married women, etc.

But God be damned if you use a rice wafer instead of a wheat-based wafer. Then, no pun intended, all hell if going to break loose.

*** Update #2 ***

You have to love the science involved in this whole Transubstantiation thing the church has going:

Catholic Church doctrine requires that the thin wafer, or host, consumed during the administration of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, contain some unleavened wheat, just like the bread consecrated by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, when Catholics believe he transformed bread and wine into his own body and blood.

“Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist,” Trenton Bishop John M. Smith wrote in a statement issued in response to the dispute with Haley and her mother. “This issue is not to be determined at the diocesan or parish level, but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority.”

You see, wheat based wafers- those turn into the body of Christ.
Rice- nope. Makes for a tasty rice cake, though.

I am not sure what is bolder- the story, or those who continue to push it with a straight face in the year 2004.

*** Update ***

Russel responds, and the response is- It is because it is immutable.

Russel still doesn’t understand that the laws of the universe analogy is stupid:

The seemingly silly rules of this man-made instituion are invested (so Catholics believe) with the authority of God himself, making them immutable and not able to be changed (especially by a mid-level official like a bishop) because they may be inconvenient in a single case. You may find that sort of rigid belief stupid, and think everyone should just throw up their hands and admit it’s all just symbolic, but that’s a separate argument.

Fine, Russ. I give you permission to change the law of gravity. What? You can’t? But you can change the rules of the church? I guess they aren’t the same thing after all, are they? Simply pretending that something is a universal law does not make it so- even for really GOOD catholics who eat wheat-based wafers all the time.

Russ continues:

Again, you’re speaking from ignorance. It doesn’t matter whether or not God explicitly commanded (like, say, in the Bible) that the wheat be unleavened. That’s not how Catholicism works. All kinds of immutable rules that are just as central and important as scripture have come from two thousand years of official church theology.

Disagreeing in what your church has decided is an important tenet is not speaking from ignorance. Neither is my open mockery of your church’s foolishness on this issue. Really, your how argument boils down to:

“It is, therefore it is immutable.”

God gave the vested authority to the Catholic church to make things up and make stupid rules for its members, so therefore these sorts of things are divine.

At any rate, the Catholic church finally saw the light about a heliocentric solar system; perhaps they will once again ‘modernize’ and see their folly.

*** Update ***

Mustard is bored, I am bored, and I am beginning to sound like some anti-Catholic bigot, which isn’t the case (although I did take some cheap shots at the pederasts).

I just think this is a man-made rule which is not divine in any sense. A lower gluten substitute wafer is no help for someone who can eat no gluten, and it seems that the hierarchy of the Catholic church should at least strive to achieve the same standards of modern physicians:

“Help, or at least to do no harm.”

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