The BYCU article I linked to yesterday referenced this nifty piece: Catholic Church opens a bar.
"[A] bar recently opened in northern France with the backing of the Catholic Church. Bar Cana in Lille launched this month as part of an effort to reach out to younger people, who might be more willing to interact in a bar on a Saturday night than in church on Sunday morning. . . . Bar Cana was inspired by the Pope, who has told the church to think outside the square when it comes to going about its pastoral business and this is certainly a left-field idea."
(A left-field idea? Odd saying, that. I believe the common phrase is "out of right field." Oh well.)
The bar, the article says, serves Trappist beer.
So what else is Catholic about it? I mean, it's fine (and cool) to reach out to the (drunken) masses by opening a bar, but if you're just selling alcohol, I don't see how that evangelizes any more than, say, selling alcohol. A different article, however, flushes out the evangelizing angle a bit more and, although I still don't know enough to judge, I like what I see:
There are nods to traditional Catholicism throughout the bar: the wifi password is Deo Gratias (God be thanked), and a carafe of house wine is referred to as a Madonna. Above the beer pumps (all the beers come from abbeys and monasteries, naturally) is a figurine of Pope Francis, and Biblical verses adorn the walls. Sadly, AFP doesn't say if the wine is Châteauneuf-du-Pape or if the top shelf is filled with holy spirits.
While it might not sound like the sort of place to hit up for a raging Friday night, the bar does focus more on the "good works" end of religion, rather than the "thou shalt not" side. Patrons come in and buy two coffees and get one; the other is paid forward for someone who can't afford one. And the profits from the operation go towards humanitarian projects in needy areas.
