I have Celiac disease. I attend a Catholic church. The bread used for communion must contain wheat, which my body recognizes as a poison. This hurts. Here’s a letter I sent to the diocese.

Dear Bishop Barron and staff,

I hope you are all having a good Lent!

A few years ago, I was (medically) diagnosed with celiac disease. If I eat any gluten (wheat, barley, rye, etc) my immune system reacts and I have severe cramping and bowel issues. When I was diagnosed, the inner surfaces of my intestine were substantially atrophied because of the long-term inflammation caused by my body’s immune response. The disease has a simple cure - I can’t eat anything containing wheat, rye, or barley.

My family joined the church via RCIA more than 10 years ago. Our kids go to Catholic schools and we happily participate in the life of St. Mary’s parish. We love St. Mary’s parish and Cotter schools!

While I appreciate the spirit of the “low gluten” hosts that are sometimes available at mass, low gluten is still gluten containing, and the immune response of a person with “true” celiac is an all or nothing hammer that their immune system swings.

It is emotionally painful to miss out on this part of the mass, and sometimes it feels like my earlier college experiences with Calvinist predestination theology - I’m “predestined” to watch, not participate. And further, if I “really” had Christian faith, I’d eat that thing that my body treats as poison and either bear the ill effects or trust God to heal me.

The wheat of 2000 years ago is, genetically, certainly not the wheat of North Dakota in 2023. Moreover, if Mary was an Ethiopian Jew, Jesus would have likely grown up eating injera bread made from Teff. Going even further, could Christ be present to the Aztecs in a corn tortilla, or to the Chinese in rice cake, or does salvation depend on faith and Europeans bringing wheat from Italy?

The Church’s insistence that Eucharistic bread contain something that is a poison to me is painful, and their insistence that it contain a grain crop that was historically unavailable to much of the world also seems theologically incoherent.

Again, sincerely, and with no malice, best regards for your Lent!