Coeliacs and the Catholic Church

I am a coeliac, which means I can't eat wheat or barley.

On the two Yahoo groups that I belong to, there has been discussion about how the Catholic Church insists that at communion, you must take part of a host, which must contain wheat. This upsets a lot as do they follow their faith or keep well.

How silly!

But then no more silly, than insisting condoms are not used to prevent the transmission of disease. An awful lot of the Catholics I know, go a lot further than that and take the pill for contraceptive purposes.

But the point about that, is you can sin and confess, but as the priest insists you eat the gluten laden host, you can't avoid it!

I actually think the Catholic church doesn't have much reason to be smug about this one. If we consider their history, we can think of the appeasement of Hitler, the problems of priests and child abuse and the treatment of indigenous peoples in South America.

I could also add the fact that my mother's family were Hugenots, who were asked to leave France by a compassionate Catholic church.