Doesn't Rosalind Moss receive guten-free wafers?

[Audrey]

Fr. Serpa,

I also heard the news story about the bishop who declared the eight-year-old girl’s First Communion invalid because the wafer was a rice wafer rather than a wheat wafer. This child is a Celiac. When listening to Rosalind Moss on Catholic Answers, she said she is a Celiac and takes a gluten-free wafer for Communion. However, your answer to the previous thread on this topic seemed to indicate that there is no such thing as a gluten-free wafer and the only way a celiac could receive is under the wine. Can you please clarify this? Thank you and God bless you!

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear Audrey,

Since Rosalind is not in the office as I write this, I will refer to something she wrote on this matter in the “the Apologist’s Eye” section of the April 2001 issue of “This Rock” magazine. She indeed is a celiac. “God has been exceedingly gracious in healing me to the point where I can now receive the host at Mass. But for the first three years of my Catholic life (which began in 1995) I could receive only from the cup….I have since learned of many priests who, well intentioned though they may be, allow gluten-sensitive parishioners various forms of rice bread in place of the host. Perhaps they do so in ignorance of divine laws. Whatever the motive, they aid the flock of God in exchanging their birthright for a bowl of rice.”

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.