A Cocktail with a Catholic Chaser

I love this idea:

The regulars are seated at the bar at Pat Troy’s Ireland’s Own, a restaurant in Old Town where the beer and the conversation are flowing.
[…]

Baseball caps are slipped off as patrons, most of them young men, make the sign of the cross and bow their heads while Hanley recites the Prayer to the Holy Spirit.

Hanley will continue like this for more than a half-hour, lecturing about duty, sainthood and the importance of daily devotion.

During that time, drinks are refilled and laughs are shared, but lest there be any doubt about the setting, the Catholics crammed into the smoky bar are intensely focused on the message. More than a few are taking notes. One man spends much of the evening with his eyes closed, fingers intertwined in prayer. A young woman weeps.

And little could make the Catholic Diocese of Arlington happier.

It’s a well-done story on a program that is doing what Jesus did – going out and FINDING the sheep rather than sitting around waiting for them to wander into church. And these priests are doing it where Jesus would have done it – at the pub, with the sinners! Didn’t the Pharisees criticise him, after all, for going to the house of the tax collector, of supping and talking with the “others?”

How totally cool!