A new Vatican letter to Catholic bishops worldwide has stirred up questions again over what kinds of bread and wafers should be used during communion in Catholic churches around the world.
The letter sparked concerns for those who avoid gluten, including people who have coeliac disease.
The letter drew attention from media outlets around the globe, but it actually reaffirmed earlier guidelines saying that bread and wafers must have at least some gluten in them.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops already had guidelines allowing churches to use low-gluten wafers and nothing would change in American Catholic churches, said Andrew Menke, executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship.
The guidelines were issued last month but began to cause a stir after they were published on Saturday by Vatican Radio. They were issued at the request of Pope Francis, according to Cardinal Robert Sarah, since bread and wine are widely available for sale, “even over the internet”.
But researchers say gluten-free diets have been on the rise in the US even among those who don’t have a gluten sensitivity, and many Protestant churches across the country have begun to offer gluten-free communion in recent years.
“Christ did not institute the Eucharist as rice and sake, or sweet potatoes and stout,” said Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at Catholic University. Some theologians have argued the bread and wine are simply symbolic, but the Catholic Church does not consider the elements to be symbols. It teaches that Jesus himself instituted the bread and the wine during the Passover meal.
“It may seem a small thing to people,” Pecknold said. “But the Catholic Church has spent 2000 years working out how to be faithful to Christ even in the smallest things. To be vitally and vigorously faithful is something which is simply integral to what it means to be Catholic.”
Bread and wafers “must be unleavened, purely of wheat, and recently made so that there is no danger of decomposition”, the letter from the Vatican states. “Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.”
However, low-gluten wafers and bread may be used, it says.