On Religiosity & Legalism

So.. I was browsing through the Soap Box at the Arstechnica Openforum when I turned onto this thread. In the thread, it discusses the story about how some girl was denied Communion (a VERY big deal with Catholics) because she could not eat gluten-based products (wheat, essentially). Communion bread, apparently, MUST be made out of wheat.

This strikes me as incredibly hypocritical of what the Church (as defined by the Nicene Creed) is about.
1. Where does it say in the Bible that bread is made out of wheat? Israel used barley as well as wheat for bread.
2. The interesting thing is, the Roman Catholic Church (as defined by the pope and its traditons) allows an exception by saying that the girl was allowed to drink wine ONLY and not have to eat the bread. She isn't the first gluten-intolerant person to be in the Catholic Church.

The most interesting thing is, the story says that wine can be drunk without bread and it's A-OK, but then it states that gluten-based foods must be eaten as well. Can you say contradiction?

Anyways, it's unknown whether or not the mother made a big deal out of something that wasn't a big deal, or if the parish/diocese forgot about the exception. In my mind, the parish made a mistake.

My contention is that the Church is a bloated object, while not malevolent as its portrayed to be by the media and academia alike, should really sit back and re-examine itself. Some denominations do this better than others, and even within denominations, some churches are better than others at following what really matters. It really makes the concept of "organized religion" seem like a joke. Legalism, unfortunately, is too easy not to avoid.