- Feb 5, 2002
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Just over a year ago in County Wicklow, Ireland, three young men decided to sidestep the secular Christmas season tradition of hitting 12 pubs and instead visited 12 different churches for Sunday Mass.
Forty churches later, Luke Doogue, 20, and his friends Neil, 19, and Stephen Patterson, 17, have found themselves explaining on Irish national radio how on earth they decided to swap “pints for pews.”
“This journey didn’t start with holiness; it started as an alternative to the traditional ‘12 pubs of Christmas,’” Doogue told EWTN News.
He continued: “We were looking for a reason to get up on a Sunday morning that didn’t involve questioning our life choices the night before. What we called ‘12 churches’ began half as a joke and half as a challenge: Could we replace pints with pews and still enjoy ourselves?”
Continued below.
Forty churches later, Luke Doogue, 20, and his friends Neil, 19, and Stephen Patterson, 17, have found themselves explaining on Irish national radio how on earth they decided to swap “pints for pews.”
“This journey didn’t start with holiness; it started as an alternative to the traditional ‘12 pubs of Christmas,’” Doogue told EWTN News.
He continued: “We were looking for a reason to get up on a Sunday morning that didn’t involve questioning our life choices the night before. What we called ‘12 churches’ began half as a joke and half as a challenge: Could we replace pints with pews and still enjoy ourselves?”
Continued below.
