Catholic Wheaties
I sometimes wonder how people can believe in such a ridiculous religion like Christianity. The thing is that while Christianity as a very generalized nondenominational religion has plenty of ridiculous stories and everything, once particular Christian sects start to add on their own dogmas, the religion gets even more ridiculous. There are quite a few off-shoot or sects of the generalized Christianity like The Mormons, The Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Catholics, The Baptists, etc.
The Catholics are a particularly popular branch of Christianity and I have often wondered if the leadership of the Catholic Church actually believed all the ridiculous doctrine that they push on others. Well, in 2004 the answer was revealed. It seems that the Catholic leadership doesn’t really believe what they want other to believe. You see in 2004, the Catholic Church was tested… by an 8-year-old girl.
In 2004, 8 year old, Haley Waldman, asked her local church for a gluten-free communion wafer. Because Haley had a rare illness called Celiac Sprue Disease, she had to be placed on a special gluten-free diet. Eating a gluten communion wafer would damage the lining of Haley’s small intestine, block nutrient absorption and lead to vitamin deficiencies, bone-thinning and possibly gastrointestinal cancer.
The problem is that this put the Catholic Church in a difficult position. While most people think of the Eucharist as a ceremonial ritual, according to the Church it is much more than that. Church doctrine claims that through the power of prayer, the gluten communion wafer actually goes through a process of transubstantiation which metaphysically transforms the wafer into the literal body of Jesus.
Because of this doctrine, young Haley should be able to eat the gluten wafer without a problem since if she prayed over that wafer it would cease to be a gluten wafer and would become the literal body of Jesus. Surely Haley couldn’t be allergic to Jesus, right? Only Satan and his Demons are allergic to Jesus. So according to the Church doctrine there shouldn’t be a problem with Haley eating the Eucharist.
Of course if young Haley ate the Eucharist and had a medical reaction to it, that pretty much proves one of three things. 1. Haley is Demon Spawn. 2. She didn’t pray hard enough. 3. That there is no transubstantiation at all and that the Catholic Church made the whole thing up.
The Catholic Church however couldn’t just tell Haley that it would be fine for her to eat a non-gluten wafer, because that would be tantamount to saying that they know the whole thing is bullshit. It would be an admission that the communion wafer doesn’t really transubstantiate into the body of Jesus. So they are trapped by their own dogma and have to reject her request for a non-gluten wafer.
