Sunday, July 22, 2012

Altar Wine During Prohibition

It never occurred to me that wine might be an issue.
Sadly, during prohibition, many wineries went out of business. However, the lucky ones who got contracts with the Catholic Church to make sacramental wines survived or even flourished. You see, alcoholic beverages for medicinal and sacramental use were exempt from the ban. (Read entire post.)
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2 comments:

May said...

Funny, I never thought of this problem either.

It's hard to believe the country went to all the trouble of
enacting a whole constitutional amendment over this...which then of course they ended up having to go to all the trouble of repealing via another.

Stephanie A. Mann said...

Ken Burns produced a series on Prohibition for PBS, and mentioned that there were some people who "converted" to the Jewish faith so they enjoy wine on the Sabbath! The history of Prohibition is also related to the dregs of nativist anti-Catholicism as Al Smith's bid for the presidency revealed--fear of Catholics, especially Irish Catholics--since he was in favor of repeal.