A Holocaust of Corned Beef

There will be no ceremonial flinging of the corned beef at Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley of Boston this year. The Cardinal has learned on the job. He may pick fights with gay folks, womenpriests, and the relatives of his poodle-owning predecessor William Cardinal O'Connell (more on O'Connell in my forthcoming book Since My Last Confession), but God forbid he should get between an Irishman and his beer. This year, Saint Patrick's Day falls during Holy Week. By Vatican decree, no celebrations of saints are permitted during Holy Week. The Vatican therefore moved Saint Patrick's Day back to Friday, March 14.

Cardinal O'Malley wasn't about to fall for that trap. Back in 2000, when he was Bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, March 17 fell on a Friday in Lent. In honor of the holiday, other bishops gave the flock dispensation from the prohibition against meat eating during Fridays in Lent, so that the Irish Americans could enjoy their traditional corned beef and cabbage. Not O'Malley. O'Malley stood firm. He was sheriff and their would be no consumption of the other pink meat on his turf. A national sh*tstorm ensued in the press. Irishmen like nothing more than playing the oppressed rebel, a fact one would have thought a guy named O'Malley would know. In any event, O'Malley choked on his corned beef. He caved to the pressure and ultimately permitted corned beef on the Lenten table.

This year, O'Malley rejected any notion of another Friday Saint Patrick's Day. He refused to condemn South Boston holding its Saint Patrick's Day parade on Palm Sunday, March 16. (I imagine the O'Malley and the parade organizers thinking, "Isn't Palm Sunday the day Jesus paraded into Jerusalem on a donkey? Good enough for me to parade my Guinness-sodden hindquarters through the streets of Southie with a shamrock-shaped beer helmet on and corned beef in my belly. It's all about asses.")

Instead, O'Malley diplomatically promised to preach a homily at March 17, Holy Tuesday Mass addressing the life of the patron saint of the Olde Sod. Very Solomonic, indeed. Or timid. Whatever.

Truth is, some part of me shares the Cardinal's frustration – Lent should include sacrifice. And one would think a beer-drinking celebration based on an actual saint would be the first to give way. Is that so little to ask of people? After all, the Friday prohibition against meat is one of the few shared communal sacrifices Catholics have left. Ultimately, however, it's not my place to judge a person choosing between a little green beer and corned beef and the Friday Fast. I trust each of these people has made some other suitable arrangement with God.

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In other news of Catholic kookery, The Right Rev Joseph Devine, Catholic Bishop of Motherwell, Scotland, accused gay people of attending Holocaust Memorial events each year in order to align themselves with Jews and other persecuted minorities. According to Bishop Devine, "The homosexual lobby . . . is ever-present at the service each year for the Holocaust memorial - as if to create for themselves the image of a group of people under persecution." Bishop Devine seems to need a history lesson: Jews were not the only victims of Nazi persecution. Gays were sent to the camps as well. Hence the symbolism of the pink triangle.

This type of unreasoned rant is why people conclude that the antipathy of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church to gay people is born not from theology but from bigotry. Sigh. As if to confirm the comparison, Bishop Devine even went on to compare himself to famed anti-Semite (at least while he is intoxicated) Mel Gibson.

Unholy Wine of the Week (the stuff you wished they would consecrate instead of the Manischevitz-type plonk we routinely get): 2006 Casata Monfort Gewurztraminer Traminer Aromatico. Although Gewurztraminer is normally considered a German, Austrian, or Alsatian product, Tramin, the town from which the grape took its name, is in the Italian Alps. This version, retailing for $15, is dry, very light, medium acid, some minerals, some stone fruits, not complex, missing some of the lychee and richness and spice I expect from a Gewurz. Nevertheless, it made a nice aperitif. I would not pair it with food of any substance, but it probably would make a nice match for communion wafers.