Can Irish Priests Drink and Drive?

There is a move afoot in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to lower the legal blood alcohol level for drivers. The recommendation is that the current 0.08 percent level be dropped to 0.05 percent.

That sounds reasonable unless you're a priest. Priests are obligated to consume all consecrated wine that is not distributed at Mass. In many instances, that could be an almost full chalice, which would render the priest drunk under the new blood level standards.

Complicating the issue is the fact that some priests serve several congregations. They say Mass in one parish and then drive to another, where they say Mass again, and may drive to a third and say Mass a third time. God, they must be roaring drunk by then!

This recommendation to drop the legal blood alcohol level for drivers got a lot of attention, a lot of publicity and a lot of comments.

The situation was exacerbated when the Rev. Brian D'Arcy, a priest from Enniskillem, said this to the Irish Times: "I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream."

Whoopee!

Here are some of the comments received:

"Surely the blood of Christ would not contain sufficient alcohol to put the priest over the limit unless either Christ had been on a bender or transubstantiation isn't true?"

"If the wine does not taste like blood, does not test like blood in what way can it be said to be blood? What is the point of Jesus/God arranging for the wine to be blood and at the same time arranging for it to be totally indistinguishable from wine? What exactly is the point? At what stage in the digestive process does the blood of Jesus turn back into wine, or doesn't it? "

"...So what is it [this Eucharist thingy]? Well, even though it's concealed behind a facade of pious ritual replete with hymns and incense, and even though it might be disingenuously under-pinned with a lot of metaphysical or theological mumbo-jumbo, it is essentially cannibalism..."

"'Drunken Irish priest' is a tautology."

"The teaching on transubstantiation is a Roman Catholic invention...The fact that thousands of priests WORLDWIDE get drunk with 'holy hangover' is already an abomination to the Lord. What they drink is simply that--alcohol."

"Transubstantiation = Paganism."

"Unsubstantiated transubstantiated bulldust."

"In Holy Communion, we receive the Glorified Body of Christ....that was transfigured at Tabor, that rose from the dead, that passed through closed doors, and multilocates at will...Therefore in the chalice we have ...the living Body of Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity...By making Himself edible, Christ is able to fully assimilate us such that St. Paul could say truly: I live now not I but Christ liveth in me."

"Let's not forget that Jesus was a Jew, as were all his disciples. And for a Jew drinking blood is an abomination. A Jew would no more drink blood than he would eat pork..."

"With all due respect, I'm forced to say this shows how impossible it is for a logically thinking, common-sense person to argue rationally with believers of a religious faith...if you can believe in magic (and let's be quite clear ...it's magical if water changes to wine), you will literally believe anything. End of discussion."

Here endeth this post.