It’s a curious post for early in a period some call Lent, but Robert Christian thinks Roman Catholics have a drinking problem:
From parishes to parochial schools to university classrooms, the Church is failing in its responsibility to talk about the pernicious impact of alcohol (and even drugs) on so many people in our society, along with the detrimental impact it has on achieving the common good. One is more likely to see devout Catholics being flip about drinking—or even romanticizing and glorifying it—than confronting the nihilism, escapism, and despair that are a big part of our nation’s drinking culture and the wreckage that it leaves in its wake. The Church takes a harder line on drugs, but how often is the topic really discussed? How often does the Church address why people turn to drug use and explain its incompatibility with human flourishing? The Church provides some assistance, but most often it comes after people have already had their lives and the lives of their loved ones (and possibly strangers) devastated by the ruinous costs of addiction. The Church can and should do better. . . .
It is strange that those who identify the emptiness of materialism, consumerism, the sexual objectification and exploitation of others, the lust for power, and other false paths to happiness are failing to address the illusory nature of the “happiness” generated by drugs and alcohol. It is downright embarrassing when one compares the Church to the world’s other religions. Buddhism, Taoism, Mormonism, Sikhism, Islam, the Baha’i faith, and various Hindu sects and protestant denominations either teach that alcohol should be avoided entirely or used in moderation (defined in such a way that many Catholics would find fairly extreme). While engaging in interfaith dialogue, the vast majority of thoughtful, virtuous young people I have met from other faiths have been teetotalers (those who abstain from alcohol entirely), while I have witnessed many of my fellow devout Catholics, who are otherwise morally serious, acting foolishly due to their consumption of alcohol. The contrast is cringe-worthy.
Not to be overly low church, but the habit of giving up something (it used to be sin) for forty days a year may not be the best way to live a life of moderation and restraint. At the same time, comments like Christian’s reveal the dark side of the old charge that Protestantism was just a cover for antinomianism. No one can outmoralize a Protestant. Even so, Rome’s version of the gospel is no barrier against taking the law lightly.
The human predicament may be that we love the law when it makes us superior, and we love grace when we are feeling low. Protestants of the good sort know that we are only superior in Christ.
Old Life 