Gluten free communion wafers: what the churches allow

Yes, you can receive communion with coeliac disease, but not with a wafer that is gluten free in the strict sense. The Catholic Church rejects hosts with no gluten at all and allows low-gluten hosts made from wheat. If you cannot tolerate those, you can receive from the chalice. Protestant churches generally leave it to each congregation.

We read the texts of the Vatican, several bishops’ conferences and national coeliac societies. Here is what they say, and what they do not.

Why the host is a problem

An ordinary host is wheat flour and water, nothing else. For a coeliac gut that is close to pure gluten. Even one host a week is regular exposure, when the gluten free diet has to be strict and lifelong.

The difficulty is that for the Catholic Church the host’s ingredients are not a matter of recipe. The bread of the Eucharist must be made only from wheat, recently made and, in the Latin tradition, unleavened. Swapping wheat for rice or potato starch does not make “a gluten free host”: under Church law, it does not make a host at all.

The Catholic rule: low-gluten, not gluten free

The rules come from letters from Rome in 1995, 2003 (signed by Cardinal Ratzinger) and most recently 15 June 2017, from the Congregation for Divine Worship. They come down to four points:

• Completely gluten free hosts are “invalid matter” for the Eucharist.
• Low-gluten hosts are valid, provided they contain enough gluten to make bread, without foreign materials or processes that would alter the nature of bread.
• Mustum (unfermented grape juice) is valid matter, for people who cannot take alcohol.
• A lay person with coeliac disease who cannot take any host, even a low-gluten one, may receive communion under the species of wine alone.

In practice these hosts are made with wheat starch from which almost all the gluten has been removed: the same ingredient found in some gluten free breads, which we explain in our article on gluten free wheat starch.

Hence a paradox of vocabulary. A host tested below 20 ppm meets the legal threshold for “gluten free” food labelling, explained in our article on the 20 ppm threshold. To the Church it remains “low-gluten”, because it still contains some. Both are right, each in its own field. The bishops of England and Wales warn precisely against describing these hosts as gluten free.

Is a low-gluten host safe for everyone?

Not necessarily, and the bishops say so themselves. The leaflet of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales for people with coeliac disease says low-gluten bread is acceptable to many, but not to all: some people react even to extremely low amounts. For them, the Church’s answer is communion from the chalice.

Contamination matters too. A low-gluten host placed on the same paten as ordinary hosts, or handed out by fingers that have just distributed them, is no longer really low-gluten. It is the same mechanism as cross-contamination in a kitchen.

If you react to very small doses, or are unsure, talk to your gastroenterologist before choosing between a low-gluten host and the chalice.

What to do in practice

The guidance from the US bishops (USCCB), the Italian coeliac society AIC and the Spanish federation FACE points the same way:

• Tell the priest in advance, not on the day. Hosts must be ordered and distribution organised. In England and Wales, your parish priest asks the bishop for permission; the Liturgy Office asks parishes to order only from the suppliers it lists.
• A separate pyx. The low-gluten host is placed before Mass in a small closed, recognisable container, consecrated with the others but without touching them.
• Clean hands. AIC asks the priest to clean his hands before giving you the host; FACE advises handling the low-gluten host before the ordinary ones.
• A separate chalice if you receive the wine.

When travelling, the bishops of England and Wales say the bishop can issue a certificate confirming that you may receive a low-gluten host, useful at Mass away from your own parish.

Anglican and Protestant churches

Church of England. Canon B17 states that the bread “shall be of the best and purest wheat flour that conveniently may be gotten”. The Canon does not settle the question of low-gluten wafers for you: ask your vicar what the parish uses and whether a separate container is possible.

Germany. Catholic hosts are officially “gluten-reduced”, never “gluten free”. On the Protestant side, theology does not dictate which flour the communion bread is made from: each congregation decides, and some have switched to gluten free wafers for everyone.

Country by country

Italy. The coeliac society AIC had hosts tested in a laboratory; the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith approved minimal-gluten hosts in 2001, and the Italian bishops announced it the same year. AIC now distinguishes “gluten free” hosts (20 mg/kg at most) and “very low gluten” hosts (100 mg/kg at most), and lists manufacturers, including the German firm Franz Hoch.

Spain. FACE had hosts used in Spanish churches tested: results were below 20 ppm, and these hosts are valid for the Church. For a first communion, it advises approaching the parish well in advance.

France. The French Catholic liturgy website said in 2015 that, to its knowledge, no low-gluten hosts were made in France: they come from Germany or Italy through a few retailers.

Portugal, Brazil, Argentina. The Catholic rule is the same everywhere. We found no national guidance published by the coeliac societies or bishops’ conferences of these countries: apply the principles above and talk to your parish.

And the party afterwards?

The service lasts an hour; the family meal afterwards is often the real trap, especially for a child with coeliac disease on the day of a first communion. Everything in our article on a gluten free dinner at friends’ applies: warn the hosts, offer to bring a dish, keep an eye on the buffet. If the party is in a restaurant, the Nutrixe map shows fully dedicated kitchens, where the question does not arise.

In short