Ireland's Catholic bishops have called for a task force to be set up in both the Republic and the North to study the legal and social implications of a World Health Organisation charter on alcohol.
In a pastoral published yesterday they drew particular attention to insistence in the 1995 charter, adopted by the European region of the WHO, that "children and adolescents have the right to grow in an environment protected from the negative consequences of alcohol consumption and, to the extent possible, from the promotion of alcoholic beverages".
The pastoral was issued to coincide with the centenary of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association and will be distributed to all 1,300 Catholic parishes in Ireland. Tens of thousands of Pioneers from all over the world are expected in Dublin on Sunday to celebrate.
Implementation of the charter "is of special urgency in Ireland where the phenomenon of underage drinking is of the greatest concern", the bishops said. While fully recognising that personal motivation was of primary importance, they suggested young people "should be given as much legal and social support as is humanly possible" in the matter.
Were such support given in Ireland, "a generation of young people which is already very vulnerable would have a much better chance of choosing `the temperate way' ", they said.
In their pastoral, The Temper- ate Way, the bishops pointed out that alcohol is the major dependency problem not just in Ireland but also in Europe.
"Families suffer from the consequences of alcohol abuse more than from all other drug problems combined," they said.
"Proverbially, Ireland is a land that combines the smile and the tear," remarked Pope Pius XII to a group of Garda Pioneers who visited him in 1956, the bishops recalled.
The Pope was referring to the abuse of alcohol in Ireland. Many, they said, from painful personal experience, are only too aware that the Pope's observation was true.
"Like every gift of God, alcohol is good. It has its place at times of celebration and relaxation. However, it is also a drug that can have devastating consequences."
Among the various shadow sides of Ireland in 1999 was "the need to face our complacency over alcohol and its increasingly dominant place in our social life," the bishops added.
Opportunities needed to be provided within local communities for healthy recreational activities, while the church needed to commit itself anew to communicating the human wisdom of temperance in the use of alcohol.
The bishops hoped this centenary year of the PTAA might be "an occasion of fresh reflection on the place of alcohol in our culture."
Over 20 bands, including the Garda Band and the Artane Boys' Band, will march through the streets of Dublin to Croke Park, where the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, will celebrate Mass for the PTAA.
The sermon will be given by Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria.
Television coverage of the event begins at 10.40 a.m. on Sunday on RTE1.
