Validity of Mass if whiskey was used

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Gojira

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Hello,

I tried searching for the answer to my question and came up empty. This seems to be a good site with plenty of knowledgeable folks, so I figured I’d post my question here.

When I was an altar boy in the '70s, I have distinct memories of the priest using whiskey (Seagram’s 5-Star, to be exact) as the sacramental wine. A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to an old friend of mine who remembers the exact same thing. He was a server in a nearby church (different parish, different priest) in the same small city in western Canada. At that time, parishioners were only offered the Body of Christ at Mass, never the Chalice. The Blood of Christ was for the priest only.

I have since married a wonderful woman who was born, raised and educated in Poland, where their education in Canon Law and Catechism seems far superior to what I received in our Catholic school system. She informed me that all those Masses would have been invalid, as only sacramental wine is allowed in Mass (with some rare exceptions).

So, I appeal to your collective wisdom to set my mind at ease on this issue. Did I not really attend all the Masses I thought I did? If they were not valid, is there an authority that I should inform?

Perhaps this was something that was allowed prior to The Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church (1983), Canon 924 (reference picked up from article on sacramental wine in Wikipedia).

Thanks!
 
Only grape wine was ever allowed. Ever. Like 1st century ever. You can use mustum which is grape juice freshly squeezed and has the ability to ferment into wine (instead of the usual supermarket grape juice which will never ferment).

So you did NOT attend a Mass there. But you wouldn’t have known any better, God is merciful on the innocent and just.
 
Yes it needs to be wine. Your wife is correct 🙂

(If I’m wrong about this, I hope someone would correct me)
In order for the Consecration of the Host to be valid…
it needs to be bread, and the priest needs to say the right words and intend to consecrate the Eucharist.
if the bread is leavened (in the Latin rite) - then it’s valid, but illicit, as leavened bread is only allowed for the Eastern rites. Latin rite uses unleavened bread.

In order for the Consecration of the wine to be valid…
it needs to be real wine, and the priest needs to say the right words and intend to consecrate the Eucharist.

If the priest in this case correctly consecrated the Host but not the wine (since he used whiskey…) - then I’m not sure what happened… was the Eucharist still there for the Host? I hope someone would be able to confirm that.

In any case, you didn’t know so it wasn’t your fault and even if the Masses were illicit, you were there through ignorance. It’s different when a person knows they are invalid/illicit and still attends, when they could attend a valid/licit Mass.

God bless
 
No, the Mass was valid.

The Eucharist, however, was not.
Can. 924 §1. The most holy eucharistic sacrifice must be offered with bread and with wine in which a little water must be mixed.
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§2. The bread must be only wheat and recently made so that there is no danger of spoiling.
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§3. The wine must be natural from the fruit of the vine and not spoiled.
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And Constantine is correct about the ancientness of the practice. Only wine has ever been allowed. Using whiskey instead invalidates the Eucharist.
 
Godfollower said:
No, the Mass was valid.

The Eucharist, however, was not.

And Constantine is correct about the ancientness of the practice. Only wine has ever been allowed. Using whiskey instead invalidates the Eucharist.
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No Eucharist, no Mass. In fact, that is the only thing that says whether a Mass is valid or invalid. There must be a valid Eucharist, and the priest must receive the Precious Body and Blood of Christ. If the consecration is valid and the priest didn’t receive, its also an invalid Mass.
 
Also, you can’t baptize a kid in alcoholic drink.

No, that wasn’t from the Sixties. That was Norse medieval guys trying to get around chopping up and melting ice during the winter. Just because beer doesn’t freeze as easily, they tried that. The Church made them rebaptize all the babies.

Re: Seagram’s, it’s not valid matter for the Host either, even if it were made out of wheat instead of rye or whatever it is. No fermented Hosts. (No leavened Hosts unless you’re over in one of the Eastern-type Catholic Rites, in which case you have to follow their rules.)

You really gotta wonder sometimes why there weren’t more lightning-strikes during the Sixties and Seventies and such. I guess God is kind to those of us who don’t know what we’re doing.
 
Gojira said:
Hello,

I tried searching for the answer to my question and came up empty. This seems to be a good site with plenty of knowledgeable folks, so I figured I’d post my question here.

When I was an altar boy in the '70s, I have distinct memories of the priest using whiskey (Seagram’s 5-Star, to be exact) as the sacramental wine. A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to an old friend of mine who remembers the exact same thing. He was a server in a nearby church (different parish, different priest) in the same small city in western Canada. At that time, parishioners were only offered the Body of Christ at Mass, never the Chalice. The Blood of Christ was for the priest only.
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So, 40 years ago, you thought the priest was using whiskey as the sacramental wine. Well, couldn’t it be that the priest you speak of and also the other priest, bought sacramental wine from the same source. Isn’t it possible that it was sacramental wine made by a small convent or monastery and that they used whiskey bottles for the wine?

As you have been told, using anything other than grape wine would be invalid. It is unlikely that two priests whose churches were near each other would be deliberately invalidating Mass with the same invalid material.
 
A Reverend Mother Abbess lay dying.

Her Sisters brought her milk with whiskey in it and her dying words were… “Don’t sell the cow…”

Nothing is wasted in religious life and certainly not empty bottles…
 
Thanks all for your thoughts on the subject.

Joan M, I had thought of this (using the whiskey bottle to hold sacramental wine). I was also 7-10 years old when serving, so I admit that my memory could be faulty.

However, it was the other way around with the bottles. In all honesty, I only saw one bottle of the actual whiskey but there was a pile of those old plastic stars from the whiskey bottles, like a pointy sheriff’s badge, in the cupboard where the wine was kept. I recall the “wine” itself being kept in a generic decanter and we altar servers never poured it from the big bottle to the smaller one used for Mass.

It was the smell of the liquid that gave it away. During the Mass, particularly when the Priest poured into, drank from or wiped out the chalice, there was a very strong smell of whiskey. I grew up in a household where I was often exposed to adults drinking and socializing (and drinking both wine and whiskey). I knew the difference between the two and also knew the difference between the smell of fresh-from-the-bottle whiskey and someone who had whiskey breath.

There is a possibility that it may have been the same Priest at both churches. Even though they were different parishes, they were in the same town - perhaps the Priest was transferred within town? I will check with my friend.
 
Mintaka said:
Also, you can’t baptize a kid in alcoholic drink.

No, that wasn’t from the Sixties. That was Norse medieval guys trying to get around chopping up and melting ice during the winter. Just because beer doesn’t freeze as easily, they tried that. The Church made them rebaptize all the babies.

Re: Seagram’s, it’s not valid matter for the Host either, even if it were made out of wheat instead of rye or whatever it is. No fermented Hosts. (No leavened Hosts unless you’re over in one of the Eastern-type Catholic Rites, in which case you have to follow their rules.)

You really gotta wonder sometimes why there weren’t more lightning-strikes during the Sixties and Seventies and such. I guess God is kind to those of us who don’t know what we’re doing.
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That’s kind of interesting (the bit about the Norse). I enjoy little known tid-bits like that. Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
 
Gojira said:
Thanks all for your thoughts on the subject.

Joan M, I had thought of this (using the whiskey bottle to hold sacramental wine). I was also 7-10 years old when serving, so I admit that my memory could be faulty.

However, it was the other way around with the bottles. In all honesty, I only saw one bottle of the actual whiskey but there was a pile of those old plastic stars from the whiskey bottles, like a pointy sheriff’s badge, in the cupboard where the wine was kept. I recall the “wine” itself being kept in a generic decanter and we altar servers never poured it from the big bottle to the smaller one used for Mass.

It was the smell of the liquid that gave it away. During the Mass, particularly when the Priest poured into, drank from or wiped out the chalice, there was a very strong smell of whiskey. I grew up in a household where I was often exposed to adults drinking and socializing (and drinking both wine and whiskey). I knew the difference between the two and also knew the difference between the smell of fresh-from-the-bottle whiskey and someone who had whiskey breath.

There is a possibility that it may have been the same Priest at both churches. Even though they were different parishes, they were in the same town - perhaps the Priest was transferred within town? I will check with my friend.
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I bet he was Irish!
 
ConstantineTG said:
No Eucharist, no Mass. In fact, that is the only thing that says whether a Mass is valid or invalid. There must be a valid Eucharist, and the priest must receive the Precious Body and Blood of Christ. If the consecration is valid and the priest didn’t receive, its also an invalid Mass.
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Have a GIRM reference?
 
Newbie2 said:
Have a GIRM reference?
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How can a mass be valid if the Eucharist is not present? That’s exactly what a mass is, the celebration of the Eucharist. So, without the Eucharist, there really was no mass.

This is just simple logic.
 
YoungTradCath said:
How can a mass be valid if the Eucharist is not present? That’s exactly what a mass is, the celebration of the Eucharist. So, without the Eucharist, there really was no mass.

This is just simple logic.
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I’m not doubting the statement, just looking for a reference, GIRM or otherwise. 🙂
 
Newbie2 said:
I’m not doubting the statement, just looking for a reference, GIRM or otherwise. 🙂
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You probably won’t find it in one fell swoop, but you can deduce it systematically.
  1. The Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary. Catechism 1330.
  2. The Sacrifice is made present through the separate consecration of the bread and wine. Baltimore Catechism Q931.
  3. If one of the species (in this case, the wine) is invalid, then there is no separate consecration of the Blood; there is only the Body. There is therefore no Sacrifice.
  4. No Sacrifice = No Mass.
 
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