Cage Match - Gluten vs Holy Communion
I passed a local church yesterday and was quite surprised to see a their huge motivational board proudly proclaiming "ALLERGY / GLUTEN FREE COMMUNION BREAD".
That got me thinking... a dangerous activity while driving. If communion magically transforms communion nibbles into the actual body of a Christ, wouldn't it be gluten free anyway. Today Google/Wikipedia sucked me down and into the rabbit hole that's the swirling vortex of Christian dogma. If I'm going to have my brain explode into confused lumps I want to share - so here we are.
What we have here is the Catholic tradition of the Eucharist, followed to varying degrees in other Christian sects. The wafer and wine are blessed and undergo Transubstantiation - transforming into the body and blood of Jesus. It turns out that it's not as simple as the communion wafer actually turning into the physical body of Christ. I mean, you can test that sort of thing. The wafers would go all floppy - unless it's Jesus jerky. Instead the underlying "reality" of the nibbles is changed.
This is an new meaning to reality that I'd mercifully been unaware of. The doctrine of transubstantiation reaches back to Aristotle idea of "substance" and "accidents" - that characteristics of a thing don't necessarily define it. A chair can be made of wood or metal and might have any of a variety of shapes - so if no particular quality need be there then there must be an innate "chair-ness" that's independent of the "accidental" physical characteristics. In Catholic doctrine the idea is that the transsubstantiated body and blood don't actually have any of the physical qualities we'd associate necessarily associated with human flesh... but let's not linger on this because it makes my brain hurt.
The wafers still have gluten in them, the wine is still alcoholic. It turns out that the digestive system doesn't pay a lot of heed to the "reality" of the "substance" and people suffering from Coeliac disease still have trouble with the gluten in wafers and people with adverse reactions to alcohol still going all odd coloured.
In the Cage Match I'm putting that down as a win for Gluten and with Eucharist hiding in the happy place of the invisible reality of Jesus jerky.
Many churches are now using wholely gluten free communion bread and non-alcoholic, child friendly, grape juice. The thinking in the less dogmatic end of Christendom is that it's all alegorical anyway - why not use wafers that won't kill a percentage of the congregation?
The Catholic Church is sticking to the old format "host". In communication from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (better known under the old common term the "Holy Inquisition") reaffirmed in 2003 that the communion wafer must be made only of wheat and must have gluten.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote:
A. The use of gluten-free hosts and mustum
1. Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.
2. Low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the confection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of procedures that would alter the nature of bread.
Honestly, that seems to be kicking Coeliac sufferers when they're down.
Luckily technology marches on. Some clever religious types have sourced low-gluten flours and even come up with a low-gluten bread made with gelatinized wheat starch that's only 0.01% gluten - quite safe for most coeliacs. Sounds like a good idea to me - but still not as sensible as just not getting into the Cage Match at all.
So, for any Coeliac suffering Catholics out there there's the Catholic Celiac Society (silly American spelling :) ) but I think looking up your local bunch of reality friendly atheists would be a better move. And by reality I mean the one that's actually measurable.
That got me thinking... a dangerous activity while driving. If communion magically transforms communion nibbles into the actual body of a Christ, wouldn't it be gluten free anyway. Today Google/Wikipedia sucked me down and into the rabbit hole that's the swirling vortex of Christian dogma. If I'm going to have my brain explode into confused lumps I want to share - so here we are.
What we have here is the Catholic tradition of the Eucharist, followed to varying degrees in other Christian sects. The wafer and wine are blessed and undergo Transubstantiation - transforming into the body and blood of Jesus. It turns out that it's not as simple as the communion wafer actually turning into the physical body of Christ. I mean, you can test that sort of thing. The wafers would go all floppy - unless it's Jesus jerky. Instead the underlying "reality" of the nibbles is changed.
This is an new meaning to reality that I'd mercifully been unaware of. The doctrine of transubstantiation reaches back to Aristotle idea of "substance" and "accidents" - that characteristics of a thing don't necessarily define it. A chair can be made of wood or metal and might have any of a variety of shapes - so if no particular quality need be there then there must be an innate "chair-ness" that's independent of the "accidental" physical characteristics. In Catholic doctrine the idea is that the transsubstantiated body and blood don't actually have any of the physical qualities we'd associate necessarily associated with human flesh... but let's not linger on this because it makes my brain hurt.
The wafers still have gluten in them, the wine is still alcoholic. It turns out that the digestive system doesn't pay a lot of heed to the "reality" of the "substance" and people suffering from Coeliac disease still have trouble with the gluten in wafers and people with adverse reactions to alcohol still going all odd coloured.
In the Cage Match I'm putting that down as a win for Gluten and with Eucharist hiding in the happy place of the invisible reality of Jesus jerky.
Many churches are now using wholely gluten free communion bread and non-alcoholic, child friendly, grape juice. The thinking in the less dogmatic end of Christendom is that it's all alegorical anyway - why not use wafers that won't kill a percentage of the congregation?
The Catholic Church is sticking to the old format "host". In communication from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (better known under the old common term the "Holy Inquisition") reaffirmed in 2003 that the communion wafer must be made only of wheat and must have gluten.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote:
A. The use of gluten-free hosts and mustum
1. Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.
2. Low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the confection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of procedures that would alter the nature of bread.
Honestly, that seems to be kicking Coeliac sufferers when they're down.
Luckily technology marches on. Some clever religious types have sourced low-gluten flours and even come up with a low-gluten bread made with gelatinized wheat starch that's only 0.01% gluten - quite safe for most coeliacs. Sounds like a good idea to me - but still not as sensible as just not getting into the Cage Match at all.
So, for any Coeliac suffering Catholics out there there's the Catholic Celiac Society (silly American spelling :) ) but I think looking up your local bunch of reality friendly atheists would be a better move. And by reality I mean the one that's actually measurable.
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