New Jersey Communion case draws attention to celiac disease issues

Published: 2004-08-25

TRENTON, N.J. (CNS) -- A New Jersey mother has appealed to the Vatican in her quest to let her daughter use a rice wafer in place of a wheat host for her first Communion. But media attention to the case has made its effects felt at Catholic institutions and agencies around the nation and indeed the world over the last few weeks. Eight-year-old Haley Waldman of Brielle suffers from celiac disease, a genetic condition also known as celiac sprue, which makes her gluten-intolerant and unable to consume a regular wheat host at Communion. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye but not in rice. When Liz Pelly-Waldman gained wide public awareness of her daughter's situation, it provoked criticism of the church's insistence that only bread made of wheat is valid matter for the Eucharist. E-mails and telephone calls flooded the Diocese of Trenton in August. Similar rumblings were reported throughout the Midwest and as far away as Great Britain, where celiac disease is common.

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