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Gluten Free Bread Holy Communion
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Vatican Vows to Ban Gluten Free Bread for Holy Communion

The number of people, coeliac or not, choosing to ‘go gluten free’ is rising faster than a sourdough loaf in the oven but the Vatican is bucking the trend vowing to ban gluten free bread at holy communion.

According to a new Vatican directive it has been confirmed that the bread used to celebrate the Eucharist during Roman Catholic Mass must not be gluten-free.

While the Cardinal noted that the bread can be low-gluten he added that there must be enough protein in the wheat to make it without additives.

The policy was first set out in 2003 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,  led at the time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who we know best as Pope Benedict XVI, but only grabbed headlines after it was reported on Vatican Radio on last weekend.

That policy said that “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.”

Coeliac disease affects an estimated one in every 100 people in Ireland and for those people a gluten-free diet is essential. Many other people who do not have the autoimmune disease may have a sensitivity or allergy to gluten. Then, there are others who have adopted a gluten-free diet as they perceive the diet to be healthier, though this has far from been proved to be the case.

The solution for parishioners who cannot tolerate even a trace amount of gluten? The church has said they should receive “wine only,” even if they would normally receive bread but not wine. So perhaps this isn’t a bad result for coeliacs after all.

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