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On The Host in the Modern World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2023
Abstract
This article traces the contemporary history of the eucharistic host, arguing that the materiality of modern Catholicism offers a distinct set of insights into the ways in which the Catholic Church has negotiated, resisted, and accommodated the modern world. Drawing on archival work, writings from a range of early twentieth-century Catholic journals, and advertising campaigns for altar bread, I show how shifting theological convictions about the Eucharist transformed both the form of altar bread as well as how and by whom it was made. Long before the Second Vatican Council, efforts to increase lay reception of communion as a strategy to mobilize Catholics against modernity had the effect of increasing demand for the bread on which it depended. After the Council, new convictions about the need for more intelligible liturgical symbols were accompanied by demands for a new kind of bread. Taken together, I argue that these factors unwittingly contributed to the creation of a new economy of host production. While the relationship between the church and the modern world remains one of the most enduring tensions in modern Catholicism in the wake of Vatican II, I show how both before and after the Council, the Catholic Church was deeply enmeshed in and dependent upon that world to achieve its ends.
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- Copyright © 2023 by The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
References
Notes
1 From an internet archive of the Poor Clares website, which is no longer active: Franciscan Poor Clare Nuns, “Altar Breads,” April 5, 2001, https://web.archive.org/web/20010414131715/http://franciscanpoorclares.org/altarbreads.htm.
2 Franciscan Poor Clare Nuns, “Altar Breads.”
3 The twin impulses of the words used during the Council to describe its work—ressourcement (a return to the sources) and aggiornmento (bringing up to date)—implicitly and explicitly structured many of the early debates about its meaning. These interpretative lenses live on in a range of debates structured by a series of related categories: letter/spirit, center/periphery, particular/universal, tradition/reform, continuity/rupture.
4 See, for example, Cummings, Kathleen Sprows, Matovina, Timothy, and Orsi, Robert A., eds., Catholics in the Vatican II Era: Local Histories of a Global Event (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), ix–xxiiiGoogle Scholar.
5 Cummings, Matovina, and Orsi, Catholics in the Vatican II Era, xii.
6 For background on the Catholic Church's nineteenth-century encounter with liberal modernity, see Steinfels, Peter, “The Failed Encounter: The Catholic Church and Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century,” in Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Policy, ed. Douglass, R. Bruce and Hollenbach, David (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 19–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on the Catholic Church's shifting relationship with modernity before and after Vatican II, see Komonchak, Joseph A., “Vatican II and the Encounter Between Catholicism and Liberalism,” in Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Policy, ed. Douglass, R. Bruce and Hollenbach, David (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 76–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Komonchak, Joseph A., “Modernity and the Construction of Roman Catholicism,” Cristianesimo nella storia 18, no. 2 (1997): 353–85Google Scholar; Chappel, James, Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and O'Malley, John W., What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2010), 54–55Google Scholar. On the distinctively American shape of this relationship, see Avella, Steven M., “The Immigrant Church, 1820–1908,” in The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism, ed. McGuinness, Margaret M. and Rzeznik, Thomas F. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 44–46Google Scholar.
7 This essay joins the wide body of literature from scholars in the study of religion that has emphasized the need for greater attentiveness to materiality in the study of religion. See, for example, McDannell, Colleen, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Morgan, David, Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar; Orsi, Robert A., “Everyday Miracles,” in Lived Religion in America: Toward A History of Practice, ed. Hall, David D. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 3–21Google Scholar; Promey, Sally M., Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material Practice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014)Google Scholar. However, relative to material reflection on Catholic devotional objects (like rosaries, scapulars, holy cards, statues, and holy water), scholars have paid comparatively little attention to the significance of the small and seemingly timeless objects—like communion hosts—that are at the very heart of Roman Catholic identity, many of which underwent significant shifts in the postconciliar church.
8 Lay reception of communion was so rare by the thirteenth century that the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) required Christians to communicate at least once a year. While the first edition of the Roman Catechism following the Council of Trent encouraged the faithful to receive communion at every Mass they attended, an emphasis on spiritual perfection as a precondition for the reception of communion, a lack of clear allowance for the regular reception of communion in Roman liturgical books, and the later influence of Jansenism all contributed to the practice of lay reception of communion. For more on the history of the frequency of reception of communion, see Heinz, Andreas, “Liturgical Rules and Popular Religious Customs Surrounding Holy Communion between the Council of Trent and the Catholic Restoration in the 19th Century,” in Bread of Heaven: Customs and Practices Surrounding Holy Communion, Essays in the History of Liturgy and Culture, ed. Caspers, Charles, Lukken, Gerard, and Rouwhorst, Gerard, trans. Schneiders, M. (Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1995), 119–43Google Scholar.
9 Sacrosancta Tridentina Synodus (December 20, 1905), in Collins, Joseph B., Catechetical Documents of Pope Pius X (Paterson, NJ: Saint Anthony Guild Press, 1946), 46Google Scholar (translation)/151 (original).
10 Sacrosancta Tridentina Synodus, 47/151.
11 For a catalog of the many decrees that followed Sacra Triendtina Synodus, see Schoenbechler, Roger, “Pius X and Frequent Communion,” Orate Fratres 10, no. 2 (December 1935): 62–63Google Scholar. Some of the incentives for more frequent communion included granting a plenary indulgence to those who received communion five times a week, relaxing the eucharistic fast for people who were ill, exhorting parishes to hold a yearly eucharistic Triduum to foster more frequent reception, and offering permission to distribute communion in private chapels to all in attendance. Perhaps most significant among these efforts was Pius's dramatic lowering of the age for reception of First Communion by declaring that children should receive the Eucharist as soon as they have reached the age of reason. See Quam Singulari (August 8, 1910), in Collins, Catechetical Documents of Pope Pius X, 54–62 (translation)/158–165 (original). For several of the crucial texts as well as pastoral advice in support of frequent reception, see Jules Lintelo, The Eucharistic Triduum: An Aid to Priests in Preaching Frequent and Daily Communion According to the Decrees of H. H. Pius X, trans. F. M. Zulueta (London: R&T Washbourne, 1909).
12 See, for example, Schoenbechler, “Pius X and Frequent Communion,” 59; O'Connor, Patrick, “The Silver Jubilee of Frequent Communion,” Ecclesiastical Review 3, no. 6 (December 1930): 562–69Google Scholar; and White, James F., Roman Catholic Worship: Trent to Today (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), 84Google Scholar.
13 Arguments for more frequent reception began to emerge in the middle of the nineteenth century. The most significant and influential advocate for more frequent communion was the French priest Louis Gaston Adrien de Ségur. See especially Louis-Gaston de Ségur, La Très-Sainte Communion (Saint-Sébastien: Éditions Saint-Sébastien, 2016), originally published in 1860. Papal encouragement for more frequent reception began to appear in papal teaching even prior to Pius's decree and laid the foundation for it. See, for example, Leo XIII, Mirae Caritatis (May 28, 1902), 19, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_28051902_mirae-caritatis.html. The lack of specificity in Leo's desire for “frequent” reception is likely one of the reasons why his call led to little widespread change.
14 Sacrosancta Tridentina Synodus, 46/151.
15 Dougherty, Joseph, From Altar-Throne to Table: The Campaign for Frequent Holy Communion in the Catholic Church (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010), 86Google Scholar.
16 Lovasik, Lawrence, Communion Crusade (Saint Paul, MN: Radio Replies Press, 1949), 92Google Scholar.
17 Peter J. A. Nissen, “Mobilizing the Catholic Masses through the Eucharist: The Practice of Communion from the Mid-19th Century to the Second Vatican Council,” in Bread of Heaven, 146. See also Dougherty, From Altar-Throne to Table, especially chapter 3: 81–110.
18 For a thorough overview of the efforts to increase communions in the United States, see, crucially, Margaret M. McGuinness, “Let Us to the Altar: American Catholics and the Eucharist, 1926–1976,” in Habits of Devotion: Catholic Religious Practice in Twentieth-Century America, ed. James O'Toole (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 187–235.
19 The phrase “multiply the number of communions” is from L. Lintelo, “The Preacher's and Confessor's Influence in Promoting Frequent Communion,” Emmanuel 13 (1907): 200.
20 Rupert Dakoske, “The Blessed Sacrament in Rural Missions,” Emmanuel 33 (January 1927): 10–15.
21 A. J. Rawlinson, “The Means of Promoting Eucharistic Devotion among the People,” Emmanuel 33 (November 1926): 268.
22 Houck, Frederick A, “Practical Ways of Promoting Frequent Communion Particularly among Young People,” American Ecclesiastical Review 61, no. 4 (October 1919): 371–82Google Scholar.
23 “The Preacher's and Confessor's Influence in Promoting Frequent Communion,” 200.
24 “The Knights of the Blessed Sacrament,” Emmanuel 23 (1917): 38–39.
25 John C. Vismara, “Holy Communion Clubs,” American Ecclesiastical Review 107, no. 5 (November 1942): 382–87.
26 Dougherty, From Altar-Throne to Table, 148–58.
27 Francis Cassilly, “The Frequent Communion Guild,” Emmanuel 18, no. 2 (February 1912): 43–48.
28 McGuinness, “Let Us to the Altar,” 195.
29 See Chapter 31 in Arthur J. Hope, The Story of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1948), http://www.archives.nd.edu/hope/hope.htm.
30 Quoted in Massa, Mark S., Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team (New York: Crossroad, 1999), 204Google Scholar. For more on O'Hara's “masculine” view of frequent reception, see Thomas Stritch, My Notre Dame: Memories and Reflections of Sixty Years (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 23.
31 See, for example, J. R. Newell, “Need of Holy Name Society,” Emmanuel 24, no. 2 (February 1918): 41–49; and Lovasik, Communion Crusade, 92.
32 For statistics on increases on reception in the twentieth century, see McGuinness, “Let Us to the Altar,” 197–98, 209–10, and 221; Joseph P. Chinnici, Living Stones: The History and Structure of Catholic Spiritual Life in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 147–48; and Nissen, “Mobilizing the Catholic Masses,” 150–53.
33 Some parishes also baked their own bread, a practice that gradually became untenable as reception increased. Advertisements for altar bread ovens and cutters were regularly marketed toward parishes and schools alongside organs, vestments, and other liturgical supplies. See, for example, P. H. Horan & Co., advertisement, The Official Catholic Directory, P. J. Kennedy & Sons (1916): 177; F. H. Bercker, advertisement, The Catholic School Journal, 17, no. 8 (January 1918): 374; and M. H. Dalediden, advertisement, Tabernacle and Purgatory, 29, no. 6 (October 1933): inside front cover.
34 “Renewal of Altar Breads,” The Ecclesiastical Review 60, no. 5 (May 1919): 576.
35 “Renewal of Altar Breads,” 576. Emphasis added.
36 A mid-nineteenth century pamphlet by a French Benedictine monk testifies to the emerging anxieties about the theological implications of adulterated bread flour. Subjecting hosts to a range of chemical analyses, the author warns of the risks of the adulteration of bread flour with alum, zinc, copper, potassium, magnesium, chalk, plaster, alabaster, pipe clay, bean, rye, barley, corn, potato starch, and more. Some of these elements, he writes, are used to improve the appearance of the bread, others to add weight to the dough, others to enhance its taste, and still others to save money. Worried that such adulterations risk imperceptibly invalidating the sacrament altogether, he offers a series of strategies for identifying them that range from immersing hosts in water to setting them on fire. See Pie Marie Rouard de Card, De La Falsification Des Substances Sacramentelles (Paris: Poussielgue-Rusand, 1856). Echoing these worries in a report on the altar bread used for the 1899 Eucharistic Congress in Lourdes, a concerned cleric calls such adulterations a “heresy even more radical than that of Luther.” See M. Mermillod, “L’Œuvre Du Pain eucharistique,” in Congrès eucharistique International Tenu a Lourdes (Paris: Secrétariat Général des Congrés eucharistiques, 1889), no. 57: 616.
37 “De Defectibus in Celebratione Missæ Occurrentibus,” in Ordo Missæ Ritus Servandus in Celebratione Missæ et De Defectibus in Celebratione Missæ Occurrentibus (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1965), 59–60.
38 “De Sanctissimae eucharistiae specierum genuinitate et conservatione curanda ad Revmos DD. Locorum Ordinarios” (1901), in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record Vol. XI: January to June, 1902 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1902), 77.
39 Maes, Camillus P., “Altar Breads and Wheaten Flour,” American Ecclesiastical Review 35, no. 6 (December 1906): 580Google Scholar. See also “Adulteration of Wheaten Flour,” American Ecclesiastical Review 73, no. 4 (October 1925): 397–410; “Pure Wheat for the Holy Sacrifice,” The Ecclesiastical Review 58, no. 1 (1918): 70–74; “Proper Wheat for Altar Bread,” The Ecclesiastical Review 97, no. 5 (November 1937): 496–97; “Flour for Altar Breads,” The Ecclesiastical Review 110, no. 2 (February 1944): 145–46; and Francis J. Connell, “Theologian Points Out That ‘80% Flour’ Is 100% Wheat, Suitable for Making Hosts,” National Catholic Welfare Council, June 10, 1946, 1871–72.
40 “Adulteration of Wheaten Flour,” 398–99.
41 Code of Canon Law, c. 1272, in Edward N. Peters, ed., The 1917 or Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2001), 431.
42 See, for example, “Buying Their Altar Breads,” The Ecclesiastical Review 39, no. 4 (October, 1908): 441; and “The Question of Altar Breads,” The Ecclesiastical Review 40, no. 6 (June, 1909): 762–64.
43 “Renewal of Altar Breads,” 576.
44 Acta Apostolica Sedis (December 7, 1918), 8, https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-11-1919-ocr.pdf.
45 A point of clarification about the title of this journal: The American Ecclesiastical Review was first published in 1889. In 1906, it was renamed The Ecclesiastical Review. However, it resumed its original name in 1944. Throughout this article, I have used the name by which it was called at the time of publication.
46 Francis J. Connell, “The Preservation of Altar Breads,” The Ecclesiastical Review 135, no. 5 (November 1956): 344.
47 Connell, “The Preservation of Altar Breads,” 344.
48 Information about the Cavanagh Company throughout this article is informed by the following sources: Cavanagh Company website, https://www.cavanaghco.com; “Communion in Hand: New Altar Breads for New Times,” National Catholic News Service Report, July 7, 1977, 3–4; Citizens Bank, advertisement, New England Business 4, no. 1 (January 4, 1982): 4; John Kostrzewa, “Small Business Making It Work: Keeping It in the Family,” Providence Journal, February 9, 1995; Bob Jagolizner, “Cavanagh Co. Rises to the Top,” The Providence Journal Bulletin, August 22, 1996; Marja Mills, “Losing Touch,” Chicago Tribune, December 23, 1999, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1999-12-23-9912230051-story.html; Mark Arsenault, “Breaded Bliss,” Boston Globe, November 30, 2008, https://archive.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2008/11/30/breaded_bliss/; Katie Zezima, “A U.S. Bakery in a Recession-Proof Business,” New York Times, December 25, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/business/worldbusiness/25iht-wafer.1.18918087.html; Rowan Moore Gerety, “Buying the Body of Christ,” Killing the Buddha, January 3, 2012, http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/buying-the-body-of-christ/; Mark Hay, “The Surprisingly Cutthroat Business of Communion Crackers,” Vice, April 14, 2017, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vvaeyb/the-surprisingly-cutthroat-business-of-communion-crackers. Direct quotes from these sources are cited throughout the article.
49 See, for example, the following in Indianapolis Carmelites Records (CRM), Folder 38/27, Altar Breads—Correspondence—1959–1968, University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, Indiana (Hereafter cited as CRM Folder 38/27): correspondence from the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to John F. Cavanagh Jr., May 30, 1959; correspondence from the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to John F. Cavanagh Jr., June 2, 1959; correspondence from the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to John F. Cavanagh Jr., 1962; correspondence from John F. Cavanagh Jr. to the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites, February 9, 1962; correspondence from John F. Cavanagh Jr. to the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites, March 30, 1962; correspondence from the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to John F. Cavanagh Jr., September 18, 1963; correspondence from John F. Cavanagh Jr. to the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites, September 24, 1963.
50 “Communion in Hand,” 3.
51 The increase in reception of communion in the 1950s was driven by the rapid growth in the U.S. population following World War II alongside continued papal support for frequent communion—including especially Pope Pius XII's relaxation of the eucharistic fast in his 1953 decree Christus Dominus. According to logs from the Indianapolis Carmelites, the demand for hosts more than doubled between 1950 and 1960. See draft of a correspondence from the Prioress of the Carmelite Monastery in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Paul G. Fox, news editor at The Criterion, undated, CRM Folder 38/27. In 1950, they had twenty-eight orders and sold 1,5351,240 hosts; by 1961, they had fifty-three orders totaling 3,850,000. A hand-written note and a typed memo in the same folder both confirm these numbers.
52 “Communion in Hand,” 3.
53 Sacrosanctum Concilium (December 4, 1963), 55, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html.
54 See, for example, Paul VI, Mysterium Fiedei (September 3, 1965), 66, https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_03091965_mysterium.html; and Sacred Congregation of Rites, Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), 37, in International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Documents on the Liturgy 1963–1979: Conciliar, Papal, and Curial Texts (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1982), DOL 179, no. 1266, 398. Perhaps the most practical step to support increased reception of communion was Pope Paul VI's reduction of the eucharistic fast to just one hour before reception which had the effect of essentially abolishing the eucharistic fast altogether, removing the last concrete obstacle to frequent reception. See Paul VI, “Concession, on the eucharistic fast,” (November 21, 1964) in Documents on the Liturgy, DOL 272, no. 2117, 668. This teaching was affirmed in the Catechism of St. Pius X the next year. See Documents on the Liturgy, DOL 273, no. 2118, 668–69.
55 “The most notable positive change,” wrote Andrew Greeley of Vatican II in 1977, “is an increase in the proportion receiving weekly communion.” Greeley, Andrew M., The American Catholic: A Social Portrait (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 127Google Scholar.
56 According to the records of the Indianapolis Carmelites, for example, between November 21, 1964, and January 30, 1965, orders increased by almost twenty-five thousand per week. Document, “Altar Breads,” October, 1966, 1, CRM Folder 38/27.
57 For the first several Christian centuries, a wide range of breads were used for the eucharistic offering. But by the thirteenth century, nearly all Western Christians received Eucharist in the same form: an unleavened host. For more on the history of altar bread, see Woolley, Reginald Maxwell, The Bread of the Eucharist (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., 1913)Google Scholar; Josef A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1955), 31–37. For more on the emergence of the host as the particular form of bread ultimately embraced in the global West, see Aden Kumler, “The Multiplication of the Species: Eucharistic Morphology in the Middle Ages,” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 59–60 (March 1, 2011): 179–91, https://doi.org/10.1086/RESvn1ms23647789; Aden Kumler, “Manufacturing the Sacred in the Middle Ages: The Eucharist and Other Medieval Works of Ars,” English Language Notes no. 53 (Fall/Winter 2015): 9–44, https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-53.2.9; Martha Bayless, “The Long Life of Tiny Bread,” Folklore 130, no. 4 (October 2, 2019): 352–72, https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2019.1632035; Aden Kumler, “The ‘Genealogy of Jean Le Blanc’: Accounting for the Materiality of the Medieval Eucharist,” in The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750, ed. Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015), 119–40; and Gerald Ellard, “Bread in the Form of a Penny,” Theological Studies 4, no. 3 (September 1943): 319–46.
58 D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae AD 446–1718, vol. 3 (London: Sumptibus R. Gosling, 1737), 11. Translation from Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 39Google Scholar.
59 Eucharisticum Mysterium, 4 in Documents on the Liturgy, DOL 179, no. 1233 p. 398.
60 International Committee on English in the Liturgy, General Instruction of the Roman Missal, (Hales Corners, WI: Priests of the Sacred Heart, 1969), no. 283, 46.
61 Sacred of Divine Worship, Liturgicae instaurationes, 5 (September 5, 1970) in Documents on the Liturgy, DOL 52, no. 523, 163.
62 See, for example, Diocese of Island, Rhode, “Altar Bread Today: Statement of the Liturgical Commission of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island,” Worship 49, no. 6 (June 1975): 360–65Google Scholar; McManus, Frederick R., “The New Order of Mass: Part II,” The Ecclesiastical Review 161, no. 6 (December 1969): 369–409Google Scholar. Some theologians emphasized the need for local bread bakers, a practice that never received widespread acceptance. See, for example, Joseph M. Champlin, “Breaking Real Bread,” National Catholic News Service, Adult Religious Education Series, January 19, 1970, 3–4; and Joseph M. Champlin, “On Breaking Real Bread: Hosts to Loaves,” The Catholic Advocate, October 7, 1971.
63 Correspondence from the Cavanagh Company, December 5, 1963, CRM Folder 38/27.
64 Cavanagh Company, advertisement, The American Ecclesiastical Review 150, no. 1 (January 1964): inside back cover.
65 Cavanagh Company, advertisement, The Living Church (June 4, 1967): inside back cover.
66 Correspondence from the Reverend Robert M. J. Minton, Pastor of Church of the Holy Family in Richmond, Indiana, to the Reverend Mother Superior, December 9, 1965, CRM Folder 38/27.
67 Document, “Altar Breads,” October, 1966, p. 2–3, CRM Folder 38/27.
68 Aidan M. Carr, “Questions Answered: Whole Wheat Altar Breads,” The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 64 (January 1964): 345.
69 “What Would You Like to Know about the Church?” Catholic Digest 32 (October 1968): 118. The quotation, says the questioner, is of their eight-year-old child.
70 Aidan M. Carr, “Questions Answered,” 344.
71 Carr, “Questions Answered,” 344.
72 Carr, “Questions Answered,” 345.
73 Diocese of Rhode Island, “Altar Bread Today,” 362.
74 Diocese of Rhode Island, “Altar Bread Today,” 362.
75 Diocese of Rhode Island, “Altar Bread Today,” 363.
76 Diocese of Rhode Island, “Altar Bread Today,” 363.
77 Diocese of Rhode Island, “Altar Bread Today,” 365, emphasis in original.
78 Diocese of Rhode Island, “Altar Bread Today,” 363.
79 Gerety, “Buying the Body of Christ,” Killing the Buddha.
80 Until 1977, U.S. Catholics were only permitted to receive communion on the tongue. In practice, however, many Catholic parishes had been offering communion in the hand for several years.
81 “Communion in Hand,” 3.
82 Cavanagh Company, “About Us.”
83 “See, for example, Dwyer, June, “The Blessed Sacrament Is Their Life, Altar Breads Are Their Livelihood,” Catholic Advocate 32, no. 4 (August 1960): 9Google Scholar.
84 Zezima, “A U.S. Bakery in a Recession-Proof Business.” See also Adelle M. Banks, “Bread of Life Is Way of Life for Communion-Host Bakers,” Orlando Sentinel, April 15, 1990; Claire Taylor, “Sisters Share Old Tools for Altar Bread,” The Daily Advertiser, April 8, 2012; and Arsenault, “Breaded Bliss.”
85 See, for example, the following in CRM Folder 38/27: Correspondence from the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to John F. Cavanagh Jr., May 30, 1959; correspondence from the Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to the Prioress of the Carmelite Monastery in Louisville, Kentucky, May 19, 1946; correspondence from the Sub-Prioress of the Indianapolis Carmelites to the Discalced Carmelites of Savannah, April 26, 1968.
86 “Communion in Hand,” 3. See also Dirk Van Sustern, “World of Flavor: The Story behind a Communion Host,” Catholic Digest, November 23, 2009.
87 Some of the women's religious communities once dedicated to altar bread baking in the United States and published accounts of their labors include Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Convent in Mundelein, Illinois: Genevieve Flavin, “Nuns Continue Tradition of Altar Breads: St. Scholastica Sisters Bake Hosts,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 6, 1950; Good Shepherd Sisters of Fox Chase Convent in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania: “The Story of the Making of Altar Breads,” The Catholic Standard and Times, 58, no. 46 (August 14, 1953): 8Google Scholar; Passionist Nuns of Kirkwood, Missouri: “Making Bread of Angels,” The Catholic World in Pictures, National Catholic Welfare Conference News Service (March 20, 1961): 1; Sisters of the Cross of the Good Shepherd in Peekskill, New York: Betsy Brown, “Peekskill Center of Altar Wafer Industry,” New York Times, February 13, 1983; Franciscan Sisters in Little Falls, Minnesota: Mary Donnelly, “Franciscan Sisters Continue Altar Bread Tradition,” Clarion-Ledger, August 31, 1985; Poor Clare Nuns of Christ the King Monastery in Del Rey Beach, Florida: Adelle M. Banks, “Altar-Bread Bakers a Devoted Group,” Orlando Sentinel, April 15, 1990; Poor Clares of the Franciscan Monastery of St. Clare in Langhorne, Pennsylvania: Kimberlee Crawford, “They Bake Hosts and Praise God,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 1991; Sisters of the Most Holy Sacrament in Lafayette, Louisiana: Claire Taylor, “Sisters Share Old Tools for Altar Bread,” The Daily Advertiser, April 8, 2012; Monastery of the Sacred Passion in Erlanger, Kentucky: Joseph Pronechen, “The Bread of Heaven: Where Do Communion Hosts Come From?” National Catholic Register, October 20, 2019.
88 Kostrzewa, “Small Business Making It Work.”
89 For more on the history of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, see “History,” Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, https://www.benedictinesisters.org/subsectioncontent.php?secid=6&subsecid=20; Altar Breads BSPA,” Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, https://altarbreadsbspa.com/; Mills, “Losing Touch”; “The Story behind a Communion Host”; and Jena Sauber, “Breaking Bread,” The Philadelphia Tribune, December 5, 2014, https://www.phillytrib.com/breaking-bread/article_41c4fa5c-a377-5b89-8629-e8f9f2c409d5.html.
90 Mills, “Losing Touch.”
91 “Altar Breads BSPA,” Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
92 The Catholic Church does not allow gluten-free hosts to be used for the celebration of the Eucharist, but makes an allowance for low-gluten hosts. See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Circular Letter to All Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences Concerning the Use of Low-Gluten Altar Breads and Mustum as Matter for the Celebration of the Eucharist (July 24, 2003), http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030724_pane-senza-glutine_en.html.
93 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Divine Worship, “The Use of Mustum and Low-Gluten Hosts at Mass,” Newsletter 39 (November 2003), in Ten Years of the Newsletter: 2001–2010 (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011): 153–58: “The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Missouri, have developed a true low gluten host. . . . This product is the only true, low-gluten altar bread known to the Secretariat and approved by use at Mass in the United States.” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Divine Worship, “The Use of Mustum and Low-Gluten Hosts at Mass,” 157.
94 For more on the development of low-gluten hosts, see Margaret Ramirez, “Low-Gluten Wafers a Godsend,” Chicago Tribune, August 25, 2006; “Low-Gluten Altar Bread from Clyde, Missouri,” Flatland, August 7, 2017, https://youtu.be/nh2X-GkHPyM; “Baking Nuns,” PBS Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly, March 30, 2007, https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2007/03/30/march-30-2007-baking-nuns/289/; and John Libonati, “Benedictine Nuns Discover Way to Produce Low-Gluten Communion Hosts,” Gluten Free Works, July 13, 2012, https://glutenfreeworks.com/blog/2008/01/08/benedictine-nuns-discover-way-to-produce-low-gluten-communion-hosts/s.
95 Cavanagh Company home page, https://www.cavanaghco.com/.
96 Cavanagh Company, advertisement, The American Ecclesiastical Review 150, no. 2 (February 1964): inside front cover.
97 Cavanagh Company home page, https://www.cavanaghco.com/.
98 Cavanagh Company, advertisement, The Priest 50, no. 10 (October 1994): inside front cover.
99 Cavanagh Company, advertisement, The Priest 55, no. 9 (September 1999): inside front cover.
100 Cavanagh Company, advertisement, The Priest 51, no. 12 (December 1995): inside front cover.
101 Arsenault, “Breaded Bliss”; Zezima, “A U.S. Bakery in a Recession-Proof Business.”
102 Zezima, “A U.S. Bakery in a Recession-Proof Business.”
103 Sewell Chan, “Candles, Clergy and Communion for 57,000,” New York Times, April 12, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/nyregion/12pope.html.
104 Faggioli, Massimo, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (New York: Paulist Press, 2012), 66Google Scholar.
105 Pope Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, Syllabus Condemning the Errors of the Modernists (1907): 63. See also Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, encyclical letter, Vatican website, September 8, 1907, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html. For more on the relationship between modernity and Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Chapter 2 in O'Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 53–92; Komonchak, “Vatican II and the Encounter between Catholicism and Liberalism,” 76–78.
106 See, for example, Gauidium et Spes (December 7, 1965), esp. 40–45, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html. For more on the church's shift in tone toward the modern world at the Second Vatican Council, see Ormond Rush, “Principle 24: Church/World,” in The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 480–532; and Komonchak, “Vatican II and the Encounter between Catholicism and Liberalism,” 78–95.
107 Komonchak, “Vatican II and the Encounter between Catholicism and Liberalism,” 76.
108 For more on these dominant interpretations, see Komonchak, “Vatican II and the Encounter between Catholicism and Liberalism,” 86–88; Faggioli, Vatican II, 66–90; Ormond Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican II: Some Hermeneutical Principles (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004), 17–20.
109 Indeed, even Vatican II offered important criticisms of the imbalances and injustices of the modern world, especially of its economic structures. See, for example, Gauidium et Spes, 9–10, 63, 65, 66, 68, 67, and 71.
110 Many accounts have emerged in recent decades to show the ways in which Christianity strategically negotiated the market for its own ends. Leigh Eric Schmidt, for example, has shown the ways that Christianity and commerce have been deeply intertwined in the commercialization of modern Christian holidays. Schmidt, Leigh Eric, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995)Google Scholar. A series of studies testify to the ways in which a theological commitment to sola scriptura shaped the rise of early American Christian publishing. See, for example, Gutjahr, Paul, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; and Nord, David Paul, Faith in Reading: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar. In a series of essays on everything from the Kardashians to Herman Miller office furniture, Kathryn Lofton shows the porous relationship between religion and contemporary consumption. Lofton, Kathryn, Consuming Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And in his study of the development of the contemporary Christian publishing industry, Daniel Vaca has shown the ways that a strategic relationship between evangelicalism and the market both shapes and expresses evangelical theologies, identities, ideas, and alliances. See Vaca, Daniel, Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.