Then you drink mustum instead. (I don't know the English name, only the Latin one.)
Mustum is basically a young wine; it's allowed to start fermentation, but then the fermentation is quickly stopped, before it develops any meaningful amount of alcohol.
Speaking as someone who grew up in an Irish Catholic house it still blows my mind a huge building full of people went up and drank out of the same cup.
Often churches which have the “common cup” use silver or gold chalices, which naturally have anti-microbial properties. They will also often turn the chalice after each user, and then wipe it with a cloth (sometimes soaked in strong alcohol) to cleanse it further.
For those who find this gross, many churches also offer individual cups.
There is a lot of variation here, some churches only do individual cups, some only do common cup.
Some wines are fined with micro wheat, and sealing barrels with wheat paste is traditional. Not sure how much it adds up to, though. Other than that, wine is always gluten free, unless you’re counting barley wine.
Celiac technically isn’t an allergy, but yes. Some denominations will give you a gluten free communion wafer. Catholicism, however, requires one that contains wheat although it’s possible to get a very low gluten option that probably won’t trigger a reaction.
The "wheat" is more of a formality in the concentrations used in the gluten-free hosts.
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The LONG sermon:
Ever hear of homeopathy? The "homeopathic essence" of whatever substance used?
For SAFE things like violet essence or dandelion essence, so called "flower essences":the flowers are place in water in the sun and happy thoughts are thought over them. (Just about like a prayer, don't you think?)
For UNSAFE substances: like black widow venom, datura flowers, and uranium: water is brought CLOSE to these things (in the case of freaking uranium. Like on a tour through a nuclear plant and holding a glass of water up to the thick glass that separates tourists from a nuclear reactor) or HEAVILY diluted.
I'm talking a drop of venom in a gallon of water, which then a drop of that gallon is placed in a fresh gallon of water, etc. etc. UP TO 100 TIMES.
And very DIFFERENT happy thoughts are beamed at that tenth of fiftieth or HUNDREDTH gallon of water (a bit like an Exorcism, if I do say so myself) and THEN that water is administered to someone.
Like a Sacrament.
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So, Rest Assured!
A Priest has Spoken!!
And the "gluten free hosts" TECHNICALLY contain wheat,
But not in any kind of concentration that is going to get any tummies rumbling.
The Church (I mean the actual, loving one that doesn't want to kill or molest people) doesn't want to hurt anyone.
And I as a Priest of that church, love you very much.
Yeah, hopefully it would be clearly labeled. I went to a Presbyterian church one time and at their communion, everyone else got wonderful looking artisan brown bread. They gave me this weird half-and-half cup with brown looking wine and this tiny 1 cm chip of theoretically gluten free cracker sealed on top. It was kinda interesting so I just kept it.
My mom us a retired Episcopalian priest. She said there are gluten-free wafers you can get if someone in the congregation needs them. She also said that it doesn't have to be a wafer, one of her priest buddies once consecrated a pancake to make a point that it doesn't matter what's being consecrated, it's all God's creation.
Note: I am not religious and do not hold these beliefs myself