Forfeiting their Birthright
I recall as a new Christian, twenty-four years ago, how grieved I was at reading the account of Esau forfeiting his birthright for a bowl of stew (Genesis 25:29-35). Certainly I was disappointed in Jacob’s cunning and lack of care for his twin brother (they were sons of Isaac) to have taken such advantage of him in a moment of weakness. But how could Esau have given up, and so easily, all that was his?
A recent account of a family in Massachusetts stirred memories for me of Esau’s loss. It’s the story of Doug and Janice Richardson, who were offended-and who ultimately left the Church-because they could not substitute rice for wheat as valid matter for their daughter’s Communion.
Jennifer, now five, was diagnosed with celiac disease at age one and, like most “celiacs,” must remain gluten-free throughout her life. Celiac, according to Friends of Celiac Disease Research, Inc. (http://www.do-e-com.net/merchants/friendsofceliacdiseaseresearch), is an “autoimmune disorder that damages or destroys the lining of the intestines in reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and possibly oats. . . . Left untreated, the damage progresses and can result in life-threatening consequences.”
That the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has approved low-gluten altar breads (see Vatican Protocol No. 89/78) is of little help in many cases of celiac-including this one-since even the smallest trace of gluten can have adverse effects. Realizing it might be disastrous for Jennifer to receive Christ’s precious blood from a chalice that may have been “contaminated” by particles of gluten from the host from other communicants, the parish priest of St. Patrick’s in Natick, Massachusetts, Fr. Daniel F. Twomey, offered to consecrate a measure of wine separately for young Jennifer, who was preparing for her First Communion next fall.
This seems like a fine solution. But not to the Richardsons, who would be satisfied with nothing less than a rice wafer. In a personal letter to the family, Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, explained that “in keeping with the Last Supper narrative found in the Gospels, the bread must be made of wheat alone. Anything else would be an invalid matter and this would not be the Eucharist.”
Mrs. Richardson retorted, “Ever see those bracelets: What would Jesus do? I think Jesus would give her the bread she needs and not make her feel different from all the other children. I believe he’d love her enough to do that” (“Unbending church forces family to rethink its faith” by Joe Fitzgerald, Boston Herald, page A-2, January 26, 2001).
How little Mrs. Richardson thinks of our Savior’s love. Would Jesus truly “love Jennifer enough” to rob her of the Blessed Sacrament in the form of his precious blood, which she could receive freely from the cup set aside and consecrated for her, and give her instead a rice cracker that is nothing more than that?
The pastor of the Methodist church the family now attends was all too ready to accommodate young Jennifer’s need for communion using rice. And rice she will receive. Like Esau, the Richardsons have exchanged their birthright for earthly food. But unlike Jacob, so desirous of seeing his brother give up what was rightfully his, the Church is a protective Mother who agonizes and seeks every possible means to meet the needs of her children without forfeiting their good and rejecting God’s gifts.
The Richardson’s faith-or lack of it-was revealed in a statement Janice Richardson, Jennifer’s mom, made to the Boston Herald article: “I grew up in the Church, and before I married Doug, who was a Methodist, we attended pre-Cana classes, promising to raise our kids Catholic. That was the deal and we kept it, but now the deal’s off.”
Christianity is not a deal. It is the free, unmerited grace of God who gave himself for us on Calvary and who condescends to be our food. It appears this dear family never got it. I don’t blame them; I still cannot get use to the fact that I do. Faith is a gift.
In an open letter written to Jennifer Richardson in the February 9, 2001 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, the editors apologize for our Church leaders who would make matters so difficult for the Richardson family. “Maybe,” the editors opine, “church leaders in Boston are stuck, saying what they have to say because their bosses these days are strict about obeying rules.”
Amen. How grateful I am that their “bosses”-bishops, cardinals, and popes who have passed down the faith for 2,000 years-are strict about obeying rules. I came from a Christianity where “every man did what was right in his own sight.” No thank you. It is Christ and his Church I desire.
Am I unsympathetic to young Jennifer’s case? Hardly. For I too am a celiac. At one year of age I weighed ten pounds and was on my deathbed when the illness returned full-blown ten years ago. God has been exceedingly gracious in healing me to the point where I can now receive the host at Mass. But for the first three years of my Catholic life (which began in 1995) I could receive Christ only from the cup.
Was I inconvenienced by archaic, strict, unbending Church leaders? Who would think such a thing? I would be on my knees daily in unutterable gratitude that the Creator of all that is has condescended to give himself to me at all, in any form.
I have since learned of many priests who, well intentioned though they may be, allow gluten-sensitive parishioners various forms of rice bread in place of the host. Perhaps they do so in ignorance of Church law. Whatever the motive, they aid the flock of God in exchanging their birthright for a bowl of rice.
-Rosalind Moss
Righteous Among the Nations
On February 21, New York Rabbi David Dalin proposed that Pope Pius XII be proclaimed “Righteous Among the Nations,” the highest award given by the state of Israel to persons who were outstanding in assisting persecuted Jews during World War II.
“No other Pope had been so widely praised by Jews, and they were not mistaken,” Rabbi Dalin wrote in The Weekly Standard magazine. “Their gratitude, as well as that of the entire generation of Holocaust survivors, testifies that Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile.”
Also in February, Italian journalist Antonio .aspari published a book, The Jews Saved by Pius XII (Gli ebrei salvati da Pio XII), that gathers numerous testimonies in favor of Pius XII from founders of the state of Israel, leaders of Jewish associations, and survivors of concentration camps. The book contradicts American Susan Zucotti’s thesis, who in her recent book Under His Very Windows-the Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (Yale University Press) contends that, although the Church saved many Jews, this was the isolated action of priests and religious. The Pope, Zucotti claims, never gave any sign of help.
“This is a thesis that is impossible to defend,” .aspari said. “Few know that as early as 1939, Pius XII had created a special department for the Jews in the German section of the Vatican Information Office. Some 36,877 papers were processed in favor of the Jews.”
“In the city of Rome alone,” he continued, “the Jewish community has attested that the Church saved 4,447 Jews from Nazi persecution. In fact, an inscription in the Museum of the History of the Liberation of Rome, states: ‘The Congress of delegates of the Italian Jewish community, held in Rome for the first time since the liberation, feels the urgent duty to render reverent homage to Your Holiness, and expresses the most profound feeling of gratitude that inspires all Jews, for the evidence of human fraternity shown to them by the Church during the years of persecution, when their life was endangered by Nazi barbarism.'”
Has there been a lot recently in these pages about this subject? Well, we’ll keep banging this drum as long as the revisionists on the other side continue to churn out their nonsense.
-Tim Ryland