Responsibility in Preventing Another's Sin

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Here’s the situation.

I want to have a few of my friends over for a BBQ. Some of them will, no doubt, over indulge in the consumption of alcohol. The Catholic Church regards intoxication as sinful (although I should point out that these guys aren’t Catholic).

Am I sinning by providing a venue where they may choose to sin?
 
Here’s the situation.

I want to have a few of my friends over for a BBQ. Some of them will, no doubt, over indulge in the consumption of alcohol. The Catholic Church regards intoxication as sinful (although I should point out that these guys aren’t Catholic).

Am I sinning by providing a venue where they may choose to sin?
I think this is a matter of prudence. It is possible to have some responsibility for the sin if we are enabling it. Even in civil law, the one who provides the alcohol can be punished if someone they provided alcohol to decides to drive drunk afterward. So, if you know they are the type to get drunk, I think it would be prudent for you to not offer any alcohol if you have the BBQ. If you think it’s likely that they would bring their own alcohol and get drunk, I think it would be best not to host the BBQ. If one of them wants to host it at their house then the responsibility is more on them. If you are there and see someone who is about to drive drunk, please try to stop them.
 
I think this is a matter of prudence. It is possible to have some responsibility for the sin if we are enabling it. Even in civil law, the one who provides the alcohol can be punished if someone they provided alcohol to decides to drive drunk afterward. So, if you know they are the type to get drunk, I think it would be prudent for you to not offer any alcohol if you have the BBQ. If you think it’s likely that they would bring their own alcohol and get drunk, I think it would be best not to host the BBQ. If one of them wants to host it at their house then the responsibility is more on them.
The reasoning is, unfortunately, sound.

Perhaps I should mention that I will not be drinking for a few reasons (so I do not implicitly encourage drunkenness, so that I can drive people home, etc.). I would not be providing alcohol. I do not think I have done anything to encourage heavy drinking, yet because they are together it shall happen.

Additionally, I find myself thinking of the Wedding at Cana. Did Jesus turn the water into wine with the knowledge that no one present would overindulge, or did He do so knowing that individuals would abuse their free will and some would be drunk. Wouldn’t the same principle apply here?

Yes, I am trying to justify having a BBQ. No, I will not hold one unless I know it isn’t sinful. I just want to be absolutely sure that if I do neglect to hold it there is a good reason.
 
Are they your friends? Real friends? If they are then they will respect you and drink in moderation at your home. What they do away from your home is not the concern for you but on your home territory, if they are your real friends then they will be comfortable about naturally applying that they wouldn’t drink to access on your territory. Have you told them to bring their own or are you supplying it? If you are supplying it, be reasonable but don’t have too much there. If you have told them to bring their own then you will simply have to trust their own discretions and if they get drunk then really there is very little you can do and am sure every adult may have had more to drink than they would have liked at least one point in their lives, if they drink alcohol because sometimes we can get drunk very quickly and other times hold more. Its hard to guage on the whole. But if they are you real friends, then they know you are Catholic and will know from what you have talked about in company and by your own behaviour they will respect your wishes at your home provided you don’t lecture them in any sense of the word because that will just encourage them to test you more.
Just have some fun and see how it goes. If they aren’t Catholic then they won’t see it as a Sin. All you can do is teach/show by example.🙂
 
You know your guests better than we do. If they’re basically nice people, who might overindulge a little, other than keeping them off the road after the party, there should be no real problem. If, however, they belong to the “consume mass quantities and get rowdy, loud, and destructive” camp, I’m not sure why you’d want to have a mess to clean up and expose yourself to civil liability by fueling their behavior. Please be advised that in many states, hosts of parties where someone has had too much to drink and later caused an accident have been successfully sued!

So, you could always leave the really heavy drinkers off the guest list, and hold the barbecue inviting those who either don’t drink alcohol or drink it sensibly. Make sure you have plenty of ice-cold nonalcoholic beverages prominently and attractively available, and I’d have a wide variety: There are some outdoor cookbooks that have recipes for very festive nonalcoholic beverages such as various juices, iced tea and punches. Not every adult likes soda pop!

If you have a spouse, or a trusted mature friend, you can set up a bar, with the person playing bartender. That way it’s pretty easy to keep tabs on who is getting a little too lubricated, and diplomatically cut them off in time to let them sober up before getting behind the wheel. Water down those drinks a little with plenty of ice. You should, anyways, switch to serving nonalcoholic beverages only about an hour and a half before the projected end time of the party to allow guests to clear their heads.

Make sure that you don’t differentiate with your party beverage ware when it comes to alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks. Being served a drink of anything should be done in the same kind of glass. Don’t make alcohol more attractive by serving it in an attractive picnic glass while you’re serving pop in a paper cup, in other words.

I’m in a similar situation with my sailboat. Every summer, I have people out for a sail, and as the skipper, it always gives me a little concern when a guest arrives with a cooler loaded with beer, or stronger. Being outdoors, in the sun and on the water, makes people drink more of whatever they’re drinking, and when that liquid happens to be alcohol, they tend to get more intoxicated than they normally would in an indoor party situation. While I do serve some alcohol on board, I’m careful to dole it out in limited amounts and interject more alcohol-free stuff. On a boat, there is always some element of risk of injury, and trust me, there is little worse than an inebriated guest heaving-ho on the deck of a sailboat in the hot sun! Unless you want to count the time where a blitzed guest fell overboard. Fortunately, she was wearing a life jacket, but I had to go into the water and tow her to where we could hoist her out with a line on the winch!

Even when I told this woman about the incident (she had little memory of it,) and how close she had come to drowning in Lake Ontario, she didn’t “get it.” Amazingly, she was very angry about the fact that I never did invite her out for a sail again.
 
If you already anticipate your friends possibly over-indulging, how about non-alcoholic drinks? I have been in this situation a couple of times and have simply provided an assortment of non-alcoholic drinks and no one had any complaints, and no one got the chance to drink too much. 😉 Everyone was happy campers!
 
Here’s the situation.

I want to have a few of my friends over for a BBQ. Some of them will, no doubt, over indulge in the consumption of alcohol. The Catholic Church regards intoxication as sinful (although I should point out that these guys aren’t Catholic).

Am I sinning by providing a venue where they may choose to sin?
Collect the keys from all your guests as they arrive. Even if they say they are the designated driver, still get the keys unless you can watch everyone (unlikey) so that you know if they drink. Tell your guests that if they drink too much, you will either put them up for the night or call them a cab, and they can come and collect their car the next day or whenever they sober up. Of course some alcoholics can be in a blackout and still “pass” for merely buzzed, but they are the exception and if you know anyone in THAT category, I’d skip inviting him/her.

You have to be very cautious because some states will actually assign partial liability to the host of a party, if one of the guests leaves the party and causes an accident. Know your state and city laws!
 
Don’t invite them… wake up call–

If they ask, just say that they usually drink too much for you to be comfortable and your Father would not have that.

What do you want to accomplish with this barbeque?
 
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