Vatican: Communion bread must contain gluten

The unleavened bread that Roman Catholics use in the celebration of communion must contain some gluten, even if only a trace amount, according to a new Vatican directive.

The directive, which was dated June 15 but received significant attention only after it was reported by Vatican Radio on Saturday, affirms an existing policy.

The issue is especially urgent for people with celiac disease, a gastrointestinal immune disorder that causes stomach pain, diarrhea and weight loss and that can lead to serious complications, or for those with other digestive conditions that make them vulnerable even to small amounts of gluten.

Many other people who do not have celiac disease may nonetheless have a sensitivity or allergy to gluten, and yet others have adopted a glutenfree diet in the belief that it is healthier — although science is far from clear on this point.

The new instructions — given in a letter to bishops from the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments — said that the confusion had worsened because communion breads had become widely available, with varying standards of marketing and labeling.

The new Vatican directive affirms a policy first set out in 2003 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a body led at the time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI. That policy said that “low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the confection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of procedures that would alter the nature of bread.”