Matt Talbot, a Dubliner who died in 1925, was a man with a drinking problem. Now, he could be on his way to sainthood.
On Saturday, Pope Francis will pay tribute to him, but not by raising a glass.
He will instead pray before the relics of the man sometimes called the ‘Holy Drinker’ and who is known as the patron for those struggling to stay sober.
Mr Talbot successfully gave up drinking alcohol for more than forty years following his promise to quit.
On Saturday, Pope Francis (left) will pay tribute to Matt Talbot (pictured left is a statue of him in Dublin). Called the ‘Holy Drinker’, he is known as the patron for those struggling to stay sober
Born into a poor Dublin family of 12 children and the son of a violent alcoholic father, Talbot himself began drinking heavily at the age of 12 when he worked for a wine merchant.
According to one account, he once pawned his boots in order to buy for a pint down the pub.
With the help of a priest, he lifted his elbow for the last time when he was 28, vowed to stop drinking, and did not touch a drop until he died of a heart attack in 1925 at the age of 69.
He became a devout believer, going to Mass often and practising penitential rites, such as keeping a small chain around his leg, and became a temperance campaigner.
With the help of a philosophy professor, he read scriptures and the writings of saints and eventually became a member of a lay branch of the Franciscans.
One of the bridges that cross the River Liffey is named after him, as are many addiction clinics around the world. A statue of Talbot stands near the bridge.
‘Never go too hard on the man who can’t give up drink. It is as hard to give up drink as it is to raise the dead to life again,’ he was quoted as saying, adding that both feats were possible with help from God.
In 1931, the bishop of Dublin began looking more closely at his life with the aim of seeing if a diocesan procedure to make him a saint could be started.
It was and in 1975, Pope Paul issued a decree recognising Talbot’s ‘heroic virtues,’ giving him the title ‘venerable,’ one of the early steps that can lead to sainthood.
One of the bridges (pictured) that cross the River Liffey is named after him, as are many addiction clinics around the world
For the sainthood cause to move forward, the Church would have to attribute a miracle to Talbot.
The Church teaches that God performs miracles but that saints who are believed to be with God in heaven intercede on behalf of people who pray to them.
A miracle is usually the medically inexplicable healing of someone.
It comes amid calls for the Pope to counter resistance within the Catholic Church against tackling clerical sex abuse, including from a member of a group advising him on the crisis.
‘There is a need to change the culture in the church. If it’s not changed, this is going to continue,’ Gabriel Dy-Liacco, who sits on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told a news conference in Dublin on Friday.
His comments were echoed by Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned in protest last year from the commission that Francis set up in 2014.
She urged the Pope to take strong action against the perpetrators and those who protect them, including by removing top clerics if necessary.
Francis begins on Saturday the first papal visit in nearly 40 years to Ireland.