Posted on 12/05/2013 7:48:10 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Celiac.com 08/09/2012 - Among many gluten-free catholics, there's been a good deal of excitement lately about low-gluten and gluten-free communion wafers for Mass in the Catholic church.
Photo: CC--fradaveccsHowever, much of that excitement seems to have been misplaced, at least in Ohio. That's because the Catholic Diocese of Columbus recently said that gluten-free wafers don’t meet Vatican standards because they don’t contain wheat.
For Catholics, consecrated bread and wine are the literal 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.
Because Jesus ate wheat bread with his apostles before his Crucifixion, church law requires the host to be wheat and only wheat, said Deacon Martin Davies, director of the Office for Divine Worship at the Diocese of Columbus. Without wheat, the wafers cannot be consecrated and used in Mass, so no gluten-free wafers.
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.
However, for faithful catholics with celiac disease and gluten intolerance who want to participate more fully, the low-gluten version, which some say tastes terrible, remains the only communion wafer option.
U.S. Catholic bishops have approved two manufacturers of low-gluten wafers. 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 provides low-gluten hosts made in Germany.
The low-gluten wafers made by the Benedictine Sisters contain less than 100 parts per million, says Mary Kay Sharrett, a clinical dietitian at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She said the amount of gluten in one of the hosts is 0.004 milligrams and that researchers have found it takes about 10 milligrams per day to start a reaction.
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.
That is a scientific impossibility and there is no way anyone could 'SUBSTANTIATE' otherwise, (your supposed miracles notwithstanding)...
It is something made up by the Catholic religion and Catholics supposedly are required to believe it, although most don't...Maybe none do...
With your religion's private interpretation of the verse then, most Catholics and Protestants are damned...
It has been shown to you guys countless times that the early church fathers believed in scripture alone...This is just another charade...
Nope...Substance is not a title or name...Substance is the result of the properties involved which results in taste, feel, look, smell, etc...
Accidents are unintended consequences...Bread is the result of intended consequences and can be changed by the properties...
Accidents are unintended consequences...Bread is the result of intended consequences and can be changed by the properties...
You are correct that substance is not merely a name, or a title, but that it is a reality in fact of the subject. In this case the Eucharist. The bread and wine are truly transubstantiated into the body and blood. It is a real reality of the new divine species. My comments were not mean to say otherwise. But you are in error when you claim what you are saying about accidents.
Since the formulation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation is based upon Thomistic principles, the Aristotelean understanding of substance and accidents is correct. Substantially the divine presence is there. Accidentally what remains are the properties of bread and wine. It is not a question of cause and effect. But a description of qualities and essence.
As physical science deals only with accidents, it really can’t comment one way or the other. That is why defining dead definitively has proven difficult.
It is not something made up by Catholicism, it is something given to Catholicism which Catholicism does its best to articulate to succeeding generations with varying degrees of success. As the past several generations are philosophically illiterate, past explanations do not always illuminate—not because the explanation itself is bad, but because the recipient isn’t equipped.
So long as it is descended from the wheat of Biblical times, it would be the same substance, even if it tends to display some what extreme accidents.
Long tradition first of all—and as at the Passover one generally used the best (one-fifteenth of all one’s income was to be spent upon the three great feasts), I think that even apart from the tradition there is a very good case to be made that the matzah at Passover would be wheat.
Jesus could—but Jesus normally acts in a way that we can cooperate with and that allows us to cooperate.
Well, at least in this thread, you are right—you can’t really count zero, so it is countless.
If you want to discuss philosophy within the realm of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, learn the actual meaning of the vocabulary. Substance has a certain technical meaning within that realm. If you want to attach your own meaning to it, don’t blame the tradition when things break down. You can take to calling diesel gas, and then put this “gas” in your car, but when the car breaks down, it is because you have taken to defining the universe, rather than accepting the universe as it is defined—and it isn’t the cars fault.
For the wealthy families, yes. But there were lots of very poor people in Jesus’ time, they would have been glad to have barley matzah. In fact, some scholars believe it had to be barley because matzah is the “bread of affliction”. If we are going to “make a case”, Passover is associated with the barley harvest (the wheat harvest would take place around Pentecost). My point is, we cannot prove that Jesus used wheat bread in the Last Supper, so where does the Catholic Church come up with the rule that only wheat bread can be used for hosts? It seems to me like this is just a case of western customs bleeding into Biblical stories. We eat wheat bread, so we assume that so did Jesus. Does it mean that he sat on a chair, at a table? Of course not!
There are strains of ancient wheat which do not cause the digestive and neurological effects of modern wheat. That's all I'm saying.
I appreciate the Catholic ritual, but the modern wheat in the Communion wafer causes problems the ancient one did not.
There wasn't much technology available to Aristotle...So it wasn't technical meaning at all...What it was is that these guys had no word to describe what they wanted to define so they stole one and ascribed a different meaning to it...And as you say, called it tradition...
If you want to attach your own meaning to it, don’t blame the tradition when things break down.
I have plenty of dictionaries available to me which show the correct definitions...
Jesus nor the early disciples were philosophers which amounts to the teaching of man's wisdom...
Col_2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Sums up your Aristotelian man made wisdom/philosophy right here...We don't need Aristotle to understand what substance or essence or properties mean...
Who knew that eating the real literal body of Christ would cause health problems.
I think I remember years ago reading about the church allowing tapirs to be substituted for fish on Fridays in South America.
Could you be thinking of this thread, from earlier this year?
Catholic Archbishop Declares Alligator Seafood for Lent
Your discourse on technology and technical is funny.
You are aware that they are Greek words and concepts that we have lifted because English didn’t have the concepts?
When people are communicating precisely, they often define their terms. If you want to understand what they are trying to communicate, then you need to understand their definitions, not your own. Of course, if you aren’t interested in understanding what they are saying, there is no need to bother. Someone operating within a certain framework can easily be understood by those operating within the framework.
Pope Sylvester II, prior to becoming Pope (999-1003) did a great deal to re-introduce Aristotle into the west and use Aristotelian terminology as a basis for various discussions because they were good tools. He also lifted Arabic numerals, and most importantly, the concept of Zero, and brought it into Europe. Every time you write in Arabic numerals, and in particular every time you use Zero, you can blame the Pope. (Hey, we can blame Zero on the Papacy....) Yes, worldly learning, but still useful—at least I think so.
You are right—many definitions are available. And if you happen to be inerrant and lucky, whatever book you open first will tell you exactly what someone else meant in a different book. Of course, if you aren’t inerrant and lucky, you may have to work.
As God has given us intellects, it is possible to learn certain things from studying the world. The heavens declare the Glory of God etc., Romans chapter 1, et al.
Anyway since you are so good with dictionaries and finding correct definitions and understanding what people mean, maybe you could explain Kant or my wife to me?
If there are strains of wheat that can avoid the whole gluten problem, you should start cultivating them.
My family is almost entirely off of wheat, and nearly everyone else in it is mostly off gluten (I like beer).
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