Church bans gluten-free host

Before Allison Sisson received Catholic Communion for the first time, her mom talked to their
priest about the girl’s celiac disease, a condition in which eating wheat gluten can cause severe damage to the intestines, and her need for a gluten-free host.

The priest ordered gluten-free hosts and held one on a separate plate for that day and when she attended Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Whitehall. Before Mass, Allison’s mom, Beth Sisson, would let the priest know they were there. Allison also wore a beaded cross made by her grandmother as a reminder.

But about four weeks ago, the word came down from the Catholic Diocese of Columbus that the hosts didn’t meet Vatican standards because they didn’t contain wheat.

A low-gluten option was available, so Allison, an 11-year-old fourth-grader at Holy Spirit School, tried it. But, she said, “it tasted disgusting.”

She has decided to receive just wine when she takes Communion, even though that makes her sad, she said.

“She was pretty upset about it,” Beth Sisson said. “I think she was afraid people would think she wasn’t Catholic if she didn’t take the host.”

For Catholics, consecrated bread and wine are the body and blood of Jesus, and the sacrament of Holy Eucharist is “the heart and the summit of the Church’s life,” according to its catechism.

Church law “calls for the host to be wheat and wheat only” because Jesus ate wheat bread with his apostles before his Crucifixion, said Deacon Martin Davies, director of the Office for Divine Worship at the Diocese of Columbus.

“At the time, the bread was unleavened. It would have been basically wheat and water,” Davies said.

In 1995, the Vatican said low-gluten hosts are valid if they hold enough gluten to make bread. Worshippers wanting the low-gluten option were required to present a medical certificate and obtain a bishop’s approval.

The policy was loosened in 2003 to eliminate the medical-certificate requirement and to allow pastors to grant approval. The Vatican also said that Catholics with celiac disease could receive Communion via wine only.

The change in Allison’s hosts at Holy Spirit came when the Columbus Diocese sent a reminder that gluten-free hosts were not OK.

U.S. Catholic bishops have approved two manufacturers for valid low-gluten hosts. One is the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Missouri; the order’s website says it has provided hosts for more than 2,000 celiac sufferers. The other is Parish Crossroads in Indiana, which sells low-gluten hosts made in Germany.

Columbus-area churches use various systems to make sure parishioners who need the low-gluten hosts receive them.

For example, at St. Brigid of Kildare in Dublin, people retrieve their own hosts from a refrigerator before Mass and place them in a separate vessel that’s presented for consecration with traditional hosts, said Sister Joan Harper, pastoral associate.

An altar server holds the vessel behind the celebrant as he distributes Communion, and people needing a low-gluten host tell the priest as they approach. An estimated 1 percent of the population has celiac disease, and even crumbs left by croutons picked off a salad could be enough to damage their intestines, said Mary Kay Sharrett, a clinical dietitian at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed a rule that says products could be labeled gluten-free if the gluten content is less than 20 parts per million.

The Benedictine low-gluten hosts hold less than 100 parts per million, “tremendously less than a small piece of bread,” Sharrett said.

She said the amount of gluten in one of the hosts is 0.004 milligrams and that researchers have found it takes 10 milligrams per day to start a reaction.

Beth Sisson said she knows at least one family who left the Catholic Church over the issue years ago. Now, about eight others in her church use the low-gluten option, she said.

More recognition to dietary sensitivity has evolved, she said. The Knights of Columbus, for example, use a separate fryer for gluten-free fish at Holy Spirit fish fries.

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