A Book in Review – The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey & Song

Book Count: 20

The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey & Song: A Spirited Look at Catholic Life & Lore from Apocalypse to Zinfandel By: Zmirak & Matychowiak
Non-Fiction: Theology, Food & Drink, Music, History etc. 401 pages 2007

First, who wouldn’t be intrigued by a book with cover art of the Pope with a pilsner? (Ok, he was only a cardinal when the picture was taken and it’s a lager [besides pilsner] in a pilsner style glass, but that just messes with the sound of saying it.) Add to that that it is indorsed by Catholic theologians, famous chiefs and a rabbi and not only do you have a great set up for a “walked into a bar” joke but a book were had to read. And once we saw the dedication on the book, we knew that we would enjoy it. (So few books thank Weird Al for his inspiration and enlightenment of the authors.)
As you can now tell, we loved the book. It was full of fun information on drinks, foods, drinking songs, religious history, pop culture and dozens of other things. It was such a complex book, it actually took us the whole time we were on vacation, sitting most every day in a ski lodge doing nothing but reading to get threw it. We had to keep stopping to reread some funny or deep bit. (Some that were both; we can now never think about Deism without thinking about Homer Simpson “working” at the nuclear power plant.) Each main entry was about both a drinking related subject and a religious one. Often these were put together in a most interesting and thought provoking way. Some were just funny. For example, “Grapes, God, and the Vines of Sodom” is about how wine is shown in the Bible, in both the positive and negative, which ends with the authors’ believe that the evil wine made from the vines of Sodom (Deuteronomy 32:32) was white Zinfandel. They also have sections spaced threw out the book entitled, “ Loopholes in the Ten Commandments” where they break down what the commandments are really saying to do or not do, and “loopholes” in them. For example in the one on the 8th commandment (Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor, and we know you may have it listed as a different number as Jews and Protestants number them differently, but still you get the idea.) Anyway it is the one on lying, they point out that according to St. Thomas Aquinas if your wife asks you if she looks fat in something, you can tell her no even if she looks like a bus in it as you are obviously joking. However, according to St. Augustine if you were hiding an innocent man in your house and a band of murders knocked on the door asking where he was, you couldn’t lie to them, but you could kill them. (Note: saying St. Augustine told me to do it will not work in court, unless you are going for an insanity plead. Also, although officially the wording is still being worked on, modern theologians tend to agree that saving a life trumps the sinfulness of lying. ) There was only one thing that we disliked about this book. Althought, it is clear that the authors are Orthodox Catholics, (I.e. they actually believe all the teachings of the religion and not only the ones they like or inversely think that Vatican II was from the devil and the “real” Pope is some guy living in his parents’ basement learning Latin.) They go on about how crappy church services have been since Vatican II, and as some one that is under 50, I don’t really care having never known different or had to live threw the time when people were trying all sorts of crazy stuff because that’s what they thought the council meant. But even then there was some interesting information. For example, when talking about how much church music today stinks they point out the humor of the song “Hosea”, which is loosely based on the story of the Old Testament prophet who was told be God to marry a Prostitute. And includes the phrase “Long have I waited for your coming. . .” Which no song about a prostitute sung in church should include. And now:
I must not laugh when ever I hear that song.
I must not laugh when ever I hear that song.
I must not laugh when ever I hear that song.
I must not laugh when ever I hear that song.