Pope Declares Whiskey Is Holy Water and Now I'm Ready for my Baptism
I must admit, I am extremely limited in my knowledge of Catholicism, Christianity, and actually, religion as a whole. My crazy, alcoholic father was a self-proclaimed Pagan, so until my mom and he split, his little brood didn't celebrate any of the normal holidays that Christian families did. We celebrated the holidays on the "wheel of the year", mostly consisting of the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes).
Do you know how weird it is to open presents from Santa Claus on December 21st? Do you know how strange it feels to get an Easter basket during the Spring Equinox? Very. The answer, my friends, is VERY weird.
Don't even get me started on why he didn't want me to say the Pledge of Allegiance in grade school. Believe me, life got more simple once it was just me and my mom.
We obviously abandoned the Pagan ship pretty quickly.
Anyhow, I digress. Given all of that, I would never profess to know a ton about Catholicism. I know about Vatican City, of course, The Pope, and I just learned today that Pagans are considered heathens and heretics.
Oh! Well isn't that nice? Glad I wasn't born in the Crusades, when the statement "Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" was in vogue. For those who don't remember their high school Latin, that roughly translates as, "Kill them all; let God sort them out" and was the charming way Crusaders had of dealing with pockets of heretics hiding within a population of good Christian folk.
As you can imagine, religion has always been a little bit hard for me to wrap my head around. That's why when I read about this recent quote from Pope Francis, I was surprised to think to myself, "maybe religion is for me after all."
During an interview for a new BBC documentary about Scottish seminarians in Rome, Pope Francis received a gift. A bottle of Oban malt whiskey.
Okayyyy.
According to an article in The National, “When he was handed the bottle, instead of just handing it to his assistant as he normally would with a gift, he held it up and said ‘questa e la vera acqua santa’ – which means this is the real holy water.
“He guffawed with laughter and it was a real ice-breaker with the students and put everyone at ease."
Oh, snap son. Sign me up for communion RIGHT NOW. Baptize me in Laguvilin and wash away my sins.
Although the clip got tossed from the documentary, the National decided to let the news slip to let us all know that Pope Francis is indeed the homie. He's the kind of guy who "gets it," you know? The kind of guy who just wants to get a little litty in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Pray for us, St. Talisker.
If The Pope believes whiskey is the real holy water, I bet he's the type of dude with a little blizzy in his robe to get him in the creative mindset to give a fire sermon. Can you imagine me and you in Vatican City getting our church on with a handle of Johny Walker Blue and pocket full of high-end kush? That visual is enough to get me to ponder a single malt Baptism as soon as this Corona shit calms down.
BONUS: If you're thinking of getting into the whiskey game, you should start with the Classic Malts of Scotland. There are six of them: Talisker (10 years aged), Cragganmore (12), Glenkichie (12), Oban (14), Dalwhinnie (15) and Lagavulin (16). Start in this order and by the time you get to the peaty, smokey taste of Lagavulin? You'll be set for life, and can then explore the wonderful world of whiskey, the real holy water according to the coolest pope of all time.