ABSTRACT
Introduction In simplest terms, canon law forbids the ordination of ‘disabled’ men to the priesthood. It is worth pointing out that the issue of impaired persons in holy orders is still not satisfactorily resolved in the modern Catholic Church. In 1995 the Vatican ‘provoked fury by issuing a decree banning men who suffer from an allergy to gluten from becoming priests’ (Bunting 1995). The Vatican insisted on communion wafers containing gluten as the only suitable kind of wafers; gluten can trigger the debilitating coeliac disease. This episode highlights the cultural and socio-economic consequences of what happens when impairments (the underlying medical phenomenon) are loaded with disabilities (the imposition of cultural construction).1
