Drinking water and preaching wine: Why Catholic faithful are in for a great treat

There is big news from the Catholic church: Its leadership is switching the altar wine. Yes, they don’t preach water and take wine, they actually enjoy a good drink.

I understand the new wine is an import from South Africa, which is to say that’s an acquired taste, even though I am curious how they determined the brew from SA was the real deal.

As in, how many samples did they taste before someone licked their lips and said: “May have another sip of this, no, that other one.” And the triumphant conclusion: “This feels more like it!”

I like it that those folks have a taste for fine things unlike those of us who belong to school of thought that declares, “hata ukizima taa tutakunywa!”

If you missed the joke, it references folks who consumed ethanol-laced brews and lost their sight, but poor buggers thought somebody was pranking them by “switching off the lights.”

I remember visiting hamlets whose sons had consumed this deadly brew and tracking a few chaps who had lost sight.

One was a remarkably jovial for a man whose world had been tossed upside down.

The local chief was even more jubilant: one of those blinded by the brew, he revealed, was a notorious thief, so he was happy the brew had sorted one social nuisance. I digress. I am intrigued by the idea of the altar wine being a big deal within the church but then, as in all other elements of procurement, money is involved—and in tidy sums.

I wonder if there is any possibility that the church would consider producing its own wines, and making a little more for sale. 

That would be what my grocer calls “sure bet,” while persuading me to purchase avocados whose skins appear dishevelled.

And when prised open and you find it rotten, there isn’t much else one can do. 

If the church considered such a venture, marketing such a product would be easy like Sunday morning, to quote a song by Lionel Richie.

“Holy waters: Blessed by the hands of the Lord,” is all the marketing needed. The rest of brand-building would ride on 500 years of church history.