Sunday, January 30, 2005
Don't pass the carafe, please
(or ... I'll take mine straight from the bottle)
Cardinal Arinze, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is making the American rounds. He was one of the keynoters at the Southwest Liturgical Conference Study Week. After his address, he took questions. A friend reports he was quizzed on carafes and pouring.
Rather than appealing to the age-old argument, "Because we said so," the cardinal appealed to common sense. If you have a few thousand people at Mass, who's going to buy the wine, he asked.
Consider it. The Vatican actually thinks your average, ordinary, everyday American Mass has a few thousand people in attendance. And they're concerned about our budgets for altar wine. I just feel all warm inside, don't you?
At another appearance, a friend relays that during the Cardinal's question-and-answer session, he said he would take questions on any topic but carafes. Catholic Sensibility, on the onther hand, will answer any and all questions regarding carafes, altar wine budget, and the thousands of people I'm expecting to show up for Sunday Masses this weekend.
