Drinking Legal Age to be reduced to Sixteen years of age­?

What a strange coincidence, that in a week when a Government survey found that young people wish the legal drinking age to be reduced from eighteen to sixteen, so as to promote sensible drinking,  I should receive a surprise visit from members of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association asking that I might re- establish a branch for the many Pioneers within the parish.

A drink can gladden the heart of a person. Jesus worked his first miracle so as to ensure the guests had sufficient and good wine at the wedding feast.

Last Sunday we began the year of vocation. To abstain from alcoholic drink was seen as a call in times past, a call to live a life of abstinence and self denial.

Today in our Mass we are offered, not a set of rules, but a way of living. Jesus is presented as the way, the One who offers a life of inner freedom, if we but walk in His paths.

Today, many people out of necessity, and some out of choice, opt to live a life of total abstinence from alcohol in a society imprisoned by addiction.

Why not begin the debate on the merits or otherwise of a life of abstinence from alcohol or if this goes against the joy and friendship a social drink brings you, then why not at least debate the merits or otherwise of reducing the drinking legal age for young people from eighteen to sixteen years of age?                              

Fr. Michael McCullagh, C.M.

20th April, 2008