Personal Guinness Boycott Grows out of Lutheran-Catholic Dialogues, by Pr. Rossow

index_24Bill Donohue (you might recognize him as one of the talking heads from Fox News) and The Catholic League have put together a petition to boycott Guinness Beer. I just signed it and I invite you to give it some thought as well.

This grew out of my own little Lutheran/Catholic dialogues. One of my closest friends is a traditional, conservative Roman Catholic. He is the husband of one our members. My wife and I have traveled extensively with him and his wife and a few years ago we started meeting once a month for some imbibing and discussion of current affairs in the world and the church. We have our monthly get together at an area Irish pub and that’s what led to my drinking and now boycotting of Guinness beer. I tend to favor lighter pilsner type beers but figured since I was in an Irish pub I would drink the darker and stronger Guinness. The taste grew on me and now I am a big fan, or was a big fan.

The Catholic League has set up the petition because of Guinness’ recent actions with the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City. As usual, it is political correctness gone awry. Check out the petition and see if you want to give up Guinness for Lent and all the other seasons of the church year as I have done.

By the way, our little Lutheran/Catholic dialogues have had some strain over the years. Because we are both so stubborn and convinced of our positions, a few years ago we figured out that debating the core of Christianity, the doctrine of justification, was going to have to be off limits. We do rejoice in the many things that we do share in common including devotion to the liturgy, common moral principles and strangely enough, support for the recent primary victory of a Lutheran boy, Ben Sasse, who was supported by another Catholic organization Catholic Vote. That story will have to wait another day for another Guinness, or I should say a Pilsner Urquel.

 

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