Bread made for celebrating the Eucharist must be unleavened and made solely from wheat flour mixed with water, according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
This traditional norm creates problems for Catholics with gluten intolerance, such as those who suffer from Coeliac disease and for whom ingesting a host can trigger stomach pains, diarrhoea and lethargy.
Some Christian communities have sought to address the problem by making communion wafers from rice or potato flour, but this is not permitted in the Catholic Church as wheat must be a key ingredient – and wheat is a source of gluten.
Catholic bakers have tried to resolve the problem by reducing the levels of gluten to the absolute minimum in breads for people suffering from gluten intolerance, though a small amount of gluten will always remain.
Consequently, such breads are described accurately only as “low gluten” (though they are sometimes labelled as “gluten-free”) and may be suitable for the milder sufferers of gluten intolerance.
For acute sufferers, at present the only option is to omit the Host entirely and receive Holy Communion solely in the form of consecrated wine – in which, the Catechism of the Catholic Church assures us, Christ is “whole and entire”.
