Time to add an “outrage” category. This is just insane: A church panel has invalidated a girl’s communion because she can’t eat wheat (original article here).
The girl has celiac disease, which means any amount of wheat can cause her serious health problems. A local priest was willing to let her use a rice-based wafer, but higher-ups declared it was invalid — that if there wasn’t wheat, it didn’t count. She can either take the communion with a wheat-based wafer, or not take it at all.
For all intents and purposes they’ve excommunicated this girl because of a medical condition.
Good thing I’m not Catholic and the sacrament doesn’t involve peanuts.
I wonder if the church would be willing to pay for emergency room visits (or funerals) resulting from this kind of situation?
I am the wheat, the truth, and the light.
Damn, that’s ridiculous. At least with Kosher eating laws (if I recall correctly), you are allowed to ignore any part of them that would interfere with a medical condition, no problem. I personally am not Kosher, but I always applauded the medical relaxing of this rule as proof that somewhere out there, people were practicing both a religion and common sense at the same time, unlike your example.
How amazingly stupid. I agree-one of the best things about the Jewish religion is the fact that people think about it.
Not all Jews think about it. There are probably just as many dogmatic Jews as there are dogmatic Catholics.
That’s true. But, I personally think that the structure of the jewish religion is more inclined to pragmatism. Then again, the structure of the christian religion is inclined to love and understanding…
Shhhh! Don’t share this this with too many folk. The reality of religion is that it always is stupid, no matter the religion. The people that had Jesus crucified were the strictest (best) religious people on earth.
And the thing that Jesus did to upset them so greatly was that he Healed a man on the Sabbath day. The rule was no work on the sabbath day. These people routinely broke the rule if a sheep wandered off into a creek and needed to be rescued. But it was against the rule to heal a man.
Jesus challenged their hypocrisy and their double dealing. For this the religous crowd had Jesus killed.
Jesus did not come to establish a religion because religion does not work. He came to establish a kingdom.
Transubstantiation: wheat becomes human flesh. Should pose no problem- unless it’s a freaking fraud. So, as the apostle (Paul?) says, test all things, hold fast to that which is true. Because we all know that the Celiac disease does not react to human flesh.