Pope Francis is no Baptist: A wedding without wine is 'shameful!'

“According to 2014 research by the California-based Wine Institute, the amount of wine consumed in the Vatican amounts to almost 20 gallons for each resident annually.”

…20 gallons is 2,560 fluid ounces (20 x 128), divided by 365 days in a year, equals just over 7 ounces per day, per capita. A standard pour of wine (i.e. “a glass”) is typically 5 ounces, so it would work out to about 1.4 glasses of wine per day, per capita. (I was curious!)

It strikes me that great numbers of Catholics in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have no real access to affordable wine. Has the Pope just said something to alienate about half the Catholics in the world right there? You can’t find real wine except at Mass, so you should be ashamed? Seriously?

it’s also worth noting that there is going to be one marriage supper of the Lamb, and it hasn’t happened yet, so calling wine a “typical” element of the “messianic banquet” is a rather odd, and un-Biblical, turn of phrase. Moreover, whatever one’s position on wine, there is no Scripture to say it is necessary for a wedding.

We might find, though, that the Pope is closer to Baptist theology—at least in some (stereotypical) abuses—than we would think. More or less, he’s trying to use typical Old Testament wedding practices (not messianic banquet practices) to impose an obligation on the church. Sounds a lot like Bill Gothard and others who would impose Old Testament law on the church, no?

(obviously a very different application than that which Gothard et al would make, but the basic core of the logic is very similar)

Here’s the summary. They beat the Italians and French by a significant margin. Now if you control for the fact that even in Italy and France, kids don’t drink much wine, and the population of Vatican city is overwhelmingly adults, it’s probably pretty close to what you’d expect in southern Europe. Note as well further down the list a lot of nations that are mostly Catholic but don’t drink much wine at all—e.g. Colombia.

…..the amount of wine that the cardinal would have had to drink to get to .08 BAC is about a full 750ml (25 ounce) bottle of wine. To get to the average level for getting a DUI, .17% BAC, two bottles/1.5 liters/40 ounces.

(assuming he’s an average 180-200 lb man)

Yeah, I’m guessing that hard liquor might have had something to do with it, because if I drink somewhere around a Big Gulp of any digestible liquid, I’m going to the bathroom, not my car. And regrettably, you’ll get a number of hits if you google “Baptist pastor DUI”, too. (I did)