Smoking Priests

It is, of course, enjoyable on occasion to be confirmed by the men in cloth that cigar smoking is--in moderation--not only not a vice, but perhaps even conducive to virtue.  This was not always the case.

Here are some modern Catholic clerics who engage in the fine art of cigar smoking.

Fr. H Setter, St. Mary's Church, Derby, Kansas

"I don't know about you, but I think it's time to light one up!"

"Remember . . . keep your smoking holy!"

Fr. Josef Farrugia, Vienna.

"Sometimes a cigar is better than incense"

"Manchmal sind Zigarren besser als Weihrauch"

Augustinian Canon Manfred Hofians of the Klosterneuburg Monastery.

"A cigar is like a conversation with a woman.  Cigars help me to bear the privations of celibacy."

Fr. Philip Cascia (deceased), St. Anthony's Parish, Connecticut.

Prelate Professor Dr. Alfred Sammer

His motto: "ora et fuma," pray and smoke.

There are others for whom I have not found pictures, including Maximilian Timothy Heffron, who is the "Fumarius" of his monastery.  Additionally the German Dominican Wolfgan Ockenfels (Trier) smokes six half-Toscanos per day and he uses his ethical whiles (he is an ethicist) to persuade other that there is a vice in not smoking cigars.  For Ockenfels, smoking has a "symbolic religious meaning," and he believes that they may have a role in Heaven (and their absence a role in Purgatory). Archbishop Reinhard Marx from Munich is supposed to be enjoy a nice cigar and red wine.

Of course, those at St.HOLGS are blessed to have their own smoking priest, Fr. James Farfaglia who is both our heart and our brain and our cigar smoking hero:

 Fr. James Farfaglia, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Corpus Christi, Texas

Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchizedek

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This information and the photographs is derived from European Cigar Cult Journal (2009)