THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Holy Mass wine which the faithful consume as the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ is being brewed under licence! Incredible, it may sound.
But not. Majority of the bishops of the Catholic Church are licensees under the Abkari Act.
The symbolic tradition of serving Mass wine during the Holy Mass necessitated them to obtain a licence under the Cochin Mass Wine Rules, 1117, which comes under the Abkari Act 1 of ME 1077.
The licence provision for Mass wine has given the boozers a weapon to fight the Church campaign against liquor. The boozers say that majority of the bishops were holding licence to brew Mass wine which also comes under the definition of liquor.
According to top Excise officials, the Mass wine has an alcohol content of 15.5 percent. While the alcohol content in beer is 6 percent and toddy is 8.1 percent, the Mass wine can have the permissible content of 15.5 percent.
Having a couple of glass of wine may give the kick similar to that of a bottle of beer. However, the Excise officials say one will not enjoy its sour taste and is unlikely to consume it in large quantity.
Under the licence granted to the bishops, Mass wine can be prepared for distribution during the Holy Mass. But there has been no mention of the maximum quantity of the Mass wine that can be produced under the licence.
A sum of Rs 250 is the licence fee fixed for granting licence. Excise Commissioner is the licensing authority.
The deputy commissioner of Excise at district level can renew the licence annually.
It has been pointed out that though there was provision for the Excise authorities to conduct inspection and check the strength of the wine, no official would venture out for it in the given situation.
Under the Kerala Winery Rules, 1970, licence can be issued to others also for making wine. But it requires distilleries and a huge amount as licence fee. No licence has been issued under this rule in Kerala so far.
The Anti-liquor Council of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) is observing `Anti-liquor Sunday’ on January 31.
Ahead of the observance, Bishop Sebastian Thekkappacheril, the Bishop of Vijayapuram Diocese, Kottayam, who is also the chairman of the Anti-liquor Council of the KCBC, had issued a pastoral epistle last week exhorting the faithful to give up drinking habit which has earned the state the notoriety of a state of boozers.
The pastoral letter also had quoted the High Court’s observation, in a case involving the arrest of anti-liquor activists, that a faithful can stop a believer from going to consume liquor in a non-violent manner.
Yohannan Antony, one of the state secretaries of the Anti-liquor Council of the KCBC, told `Express’ that observance of the last Sunday of January as `Anti-liquor Sunday’ was an annual event.
He said that there was no chance of abuse of the Mass wine by the faithful as only on very rare occasions that it is being distributed among the faithful.
Only the parish priests have access to the Mass wine. The wine brewed at the diocese centres will be distributed only through the parish priests, he said.
``It is a symbolic ritual. The believers take it as the flesh and blood of the Lord. There is no scope for abuse of the licence,’’ he said.