JohnF_73
Unregistered
J
Regarding the fiasco with the little girls’ communion being voided by some ignorant unsympathetic Rev.
As disgusted as I am with his attitude and actions, I feel a few salient facts need to be corrected, in the interests of accuracy.
Randi mentions the “church's pastor, the Rev. Stanley P. Lukaszewski.
Well, as far as I can recall, being a lapsed RC myself, Roman Catholicism doesn’t have Pastor’s. Or Reverends. So something’s wrong there. Either the girls denomination is not RC, or the appellation used is incorrect.
"Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist," he said.
Second, Roman Catholics take their beliefs from the Holy See. Since there is no official RC doctrine to say that the wafer must be gluten free, I think this Rev. is either (again) not RC, or making up his own rules. (They used to burn people for that, remember?) I’m sure Haley’s mother’s letter will provoke similar confusion in the recipient.
Lastly, it’s a crazy belief system I know, but the wafer is not supposed to represent the body of Christ. It is a dogma of RC belief, that the ceremony of “mass†contains a literal transfiguration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of their saviour. Sort of “looks like bread, tastes like bread, but trust us, it’s really the flesh of Christâ€. Hence referring to the wafer as a symbol is technically incorrect if the ceremony is R.C., but as I said, I think that’s less and less likely.
The Roman Catholic Church has plenty of things wrong with it, plenty of irrational superstition, like any religion. But compared to some they are better than most, what with their official acceptance of the Big Bang, Evolution, etc… They may have been 400 years too late in forgiving Galileo, but I think the gluten-free thing just smacks of whole different sort of nuttiness.
As disgusted as I am with his attitude and actions, I feel a few salient facts need to be corrected, in the interests of accuracy.
Randi mentions the “church's pastor, the Rev. Stanley P. Lukaszewski.
Well, as far as I can recall, being a lapsed RC myself, Roman Catholicism doesn’t have Pastor’s. Or Reverends. So something’s wrong there. Either the girls denomination is not RC, or the appellation used is incorrect.
"Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist," he said.
Second, Roman Catholics take their beliefs from the Holy See. Since there is no official RC doctrine to say that the wafer must be gluten free, I think this Rev. is either (again) not RC, or making up his own rules. (They used to burn people for that, remember?) I’m sure Haley’s mother’s letter will provoke similar confusion in the recipient.
Lastly, it’s a crazy belief system I know, but the wafer is not supposed to represent the body of Christ. It is a dogma of RC belief, that the ceremony of “mass†contains a literal transfiguration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of their saviour. Sort of “looks like bread, tastes like bread, but trust us, it’s really the flesh of Christâ€. Hence referring to the wafer as a symbol is technically incorrect if the ceremony is R.C., but as I said, I think that’s less and less likely.
The Roman Catholic Church has plenty of things wrong with it, plenty of irrational superstition, like any religion. But compared to some they are better than most, what with their official acceptance of the Big Bang, Evolution, etc… They may have been 400 years too late in forgiving Galileo, but I think the gluten-free thing just smacks of whole different sort of nuttiness.
