“Intemperance and drunkenness are the companions of the wicked rich man… A moment of pleasure in this world will cost us very dear in the other. There they will be tormented by a raging hunger and a devouring thirst; they will not even have a drop of water to refresh themselves; their tongue and their body will be consumed by the flames for a whole eternity…” (Words of St. John Vianney on the sin of Gluttony).
What Is Drunkenness?
In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes in the inerrant Word of God: “And do not be drunk with wine, where is luxury” (Ephesians 5:18).
What does it mean to be drunk? And is alcohol sinful or not?
Fr. Dominic Prummer, in his Handbook of Moral Theology, defines drunkenness as follows:
“Drunkenness is a deliberate excess in the use of intoxicating drink or drugs to the point of forcibly depriving oneself of the use of reason for the sake of gratifying an inordinate desire for such drink and not for the sake of promoting health.”
There are three parts to this definition: the deliberate excess in drink, the use of which goes so far as to deprive a man of the use of his reason, and the act is done for the sake of gratifying one’s inordinate desire for alcoholic drinks. The sin therefore is deliberate. It is necessarily an excess. And it is clearly wrong to intentionally inhibit our use of right reason. Given these factors, the point of drunkenness does vary widely from person to person since tolerance to alcohol varies. But in all cases, drinking should never go so far as for a person to lose control of his mental faculties. Father Prummer accordingly writes:
“If one does not forcibly deprive oneself of the use of reason, the sin of drunkenness is not committed. Thus, natural sleep deprives man of the use of reason in a natural manner. The signs of perfect intoxication are: acts totally contrary to normal behavior, incapability of distinguishing between good and evil, forgetfulness on the morrow of everything done in the state of drunkenness, etc.”
Therefore, it is not the presence or absence of a hangover that determines if one has sinned. If one loses his ability to reason, he has gone too far.
Alcohol, Appropriately Used, Is a Gift from God
Unlike some Baptists and Evangelical Protestants, Catholics know that there is nothing wrong with alcohol in and of itself. God created alcohol and Noah himself was the first human person to drink wine (cf. Genesis 9). As the Lord Himself taught: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matthew 15:11). Alcohol, like food, is a gift from God which can be used and enjoyed but which may also be abused.
It should be obvious to every Catholic that wine (alcohol) in and of itself cannot be considered sinful. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass requires not only bread, but also wine. The use of something sinful could never be mandated in sacred worship. We can be sure that Our Lord also drank wine, given the evidence of the Last Supper and the fact that He would have celebrated the Hebrew Passover each year.
And while some variant of beer existed in ancient China and Mesopotamia, it was Catholic monks who greatly popularized and perfected the beer-making process. In all likelihood, this goes back all the way to St. Benedict. Beer was a product monks used for commerce, to show hospitality to travelers (in those days it could be safer to drink than water), and to help through the many fasts required by monastic life.
Nevertheless, the Church also supports those who choose to live a life of abstinence from alcohol – like from meat – in penance and in satisfaction for sin. Yet early Church Fathers, such as St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom, rebuked and corrected those who taught that the Church should forbid the use of alcohol outright by the faithful. Saint John Chrysostom (4th-5th century) for instance wrote: “Wine is the work of God, but drunkenness is the work of the devil.” And the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Middle Ages wrote: “Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath, and a glass of wine.” Nothing God created is evil, and alcohol is a naturally occurring substance from the process of fermentation.
Alcohol Is Not Sinful, but Being Drunk Is [Potentially Mortally Sinful]
As the Scriptures said: “Thou waterest the hills from thy upper rooms: the earth shall be filled with the fruit of thy works: Bringing forth grass for cattle, and herb for the service of men. That thou mayst bring bread out of the earth: And that wine may cheer the heart of man” (Psalm 103:13-15).
God brings forth wine. To condemn wine then outright would go so far as to blasphemously claim that God promotes sin! Drinking alcohol is not sinful, but drunkenness is sinful.
We all know that we must avoid intentionally placing ourselves in temptation. Everyone also knows that people who are drunk are far more likely to commit sins – be it by commission, omission or participation. One who willingly gets drunk has intentionally and unnecessarily placed himself in a near occasion of sin. This is already sinful, even if no other sin is committed.[i]
Fathers Spirago and Clarke explain: “The most common and the most dangerous occasions of sin are: liquor saloons, dancing saloons, bad theaters, bad periodicals, and bad novels… The liquor saloon is principally dangerous for those who go tither every day, and spend a long time there.”[2]
Furthermore, they teach: “By intemperance [drunkenness] a man injures his health, weakens his mental faculties, and reduces himself to poverty; falls into vice, often comes to a miserable end, and is eternally lost.”[3]
Indeed, the Church teaches that drunkenness may rise to the level of mortal sin. As Fr. Prummer explains:
“Complete drunkenness is a grave sin which admits of slight matter. This is the most common opinion today. The reason given is that it is seriously contrary to right reason, a) for a man to deprive himself knowingly and willingly of the use of his reason for the sake of gratifying his desire for intoxicants for no sufficient reasons of health, b) for a man to expose himself to a grave danger of sin through his manner of acting, c) for a man to expose himself to many other dangers as the result of drunkenness, such as ill-health, domestic troubles, damage to his property.”
He continues by also affirming:
“Any state short of complete drunkenness is of itself venially sinful.” However: “A man is responsible for the sins committed in a state of complete intoxication to the extent that he could and ought to have foreseen them.”
Conclusion
Consequently, let us raise our glasses and enjoy alcohol appropriately as any of God’s gifts, but let us do so in moderation and always stop before we begin to lose our mental facilities and fall into sin. And for those who have fallen into drunkenness but failed to confess it, mention this in your next Confession.
Going forward, use it always in joyful moderation in contrast to the errors of some Protestants who, despite the clear teachings of Christ and the early Church, condemn all alcohol. On the contrary, we proudly sing the words of Hilaire Belloc: “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!”
ENDNOTES
[1] For those who suffer from an addiction to alcohol, it can be sinful to simply place themselves in a situation where many others are drinking, because the temptation to fall again will then be great.
[2] The Catechism Explained by Rev. Francis Spirago and Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J. Original publishing year 1889. Imprimatur in 1921. (TAN, Rockford, 1993) p. 477.
[3] Ibid.,p. 499.