” “"Arousing a debate that will help us slowly change our insane attitude to alcohol": this is the beginning, on Sunday 18th February, the Day of Prayer for Moderation, of the letter written by bishop Eamonn Walsh, vice-president of the Initiative of the Irish Bishops Conference for alcohol and drugs, who presented in Dublin the bishops’ pastoral letter for the Sunday of moderation and for Lent 2007, named "Alcohol: the challenge of moderation". The "Sunday of Moderation" will be followed by Ash Wednesday, the day on which, says the letter, "many people decide to be moderate during Lent, in a spirit of sacrifice, to improve themselves". The Bishops’ Initiative for Alcohol and Drugs (ibdi@eircom.net) aims at offering suggestions to promote abstinence from alcohol on a local and parish-wide level. To do this, the bishops are preparing a DVD that will be distributed in schools. After 150 years, said the bishop Walsh as he mentioned the death in 1856 of the capuchin friar Theobald Mathew who spent his life in fighting alcohol, "we still have a destructive relationship with alcoholism". Young men and women are most at risk, with young women being the world’s most serious binge drinkers.” “
