Churches in Trinidad and Tobago will ask the government to exempt sacramental wine from a new law raising the legal drinking age to 21, after church leaders said it could make a child’s or teenager’s sip from the chalice a TT$50,000 offence. The Rt. Rev. Claude Berkley, Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago, told the Trinidad Guardian that the law directly affects a rite that “is an enshrined ritual of the Church from very early times,” and that the churches plan to make representations before Christmas.
Bishop Berkley said the diocese was studying the legislation and that, if it remained in force, “the Church is compelled to obey the law of the land.” He told the Guardian that the church’s current thinking was that an express exemption was needed, though it had not reached a final view. He did not recall any consultation with the Anglican Church before the bill was introduced.
The Miscellaneous Provisions (Alcohol, Cannabis, Dangerous Drugs, Gambling and Tobacco) Bill, 2026, raises the minimum age for alcohol and tobacco from 18 to 21 and for cannabis and gambling to 25. Attorney General John Jeremie SC introduced it in the House of Representatives on Sept. 30, and it passed that night by 23 votes to 10. The Senate passed it with amendments on Oct. 7 by 15 votes to 12, with three abstentions, and the House accepted the Senate’s amendments by 24 votes to 13, according to the [Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago’s record of the bill. That record does not yet show presidential assent or publication in the Gazette.
The bill as introduced creates two new offences that touch the communion cup. An amended section 38 of the Children Act would make a child “over the age of ten years” found “in possession of, or drinking, alcohol” liable on summary conviction to a fine of fifty thousand dollars. A new section 38A applies the same penalty to anyone aged 18 to 20 who “drinks alcohol” or “is in possession of alcohol,” according to the text of House Bill No. 17 of 2026. Police may instead issue a fixed penalty notice, which can be paid or settled by completing a rehabilitative programme.
Under the Children Act, a constable who finds a child drinking alcohol must issue a warning and take down the details of the child and the child’s parent or guardian. The Act defines alcohol by reference to the Liquor Licences Act. The Liquor Licences Act defines intoxicating liquor as “spirits, wine or beer, or any liquor being a mixture, beverage or preparation containing the same,” and sets a 1.2 percent alcohol threshold only for beer, an Opposition MP told the House during the Sept. 30 debate.
The bill contains no exemption for sacramental or religious use of alcohol, the Guardian reported. The government did add an exemption during the House committee stage, but for a different purpose: it lets 18- to 20-year-olds handle, sell, supply or possess alcohol and tobacco in the course of their lawful employment, according to Guardian Media.
The question was first raised in Parliament on Sept. 30. Dominic Romain, the Opposition MP for Malabar/Mausica, told the House that a Catholic constituent had asked about first communion, “because they are practising Catholics.” He noted that communion wine typically runs from 11 to 18 percent alcohol and asked the Attorney General to clarify in his closing speech what alcohol content would count as “intoxicating liquor,” according to Hansard.
The issue became political last week, when the House took up the Senate’s amendments. Opposition MP Colm Imbert, who represents Diego Martin North/East, argued that an amendment requiring identification from people receiving sacramental cannabis infringed on religious freedom. He connected it to limits on sacramental wine at Christian communion. “You are anti-religion! You are anti the Catholic church, and you are anti the Rastafarian movement!” he said, as reported by the Guardian]. Mr. Jeremie replied that the identification requirement had nothing to do with searches or entering premises, and he called Mr. Imbert’s other claims “inflammatory and devoid of merit.”
Mr. Imbert repeated the charge on X, writing that the government had passed a law that “imposes an outright ban on the dispensing of sacramental wine to Catholics and other Christians under the age of 21 during communion, with harsh penalties.” He also claimed that no other Commonwealth country has such a law, the Guardian reported.
The dispute points to a gap in the country’s laws on religious use. Trinidad and Tobago already licenses religious use of cannabis. The Cannabis Control Act, 2022 provides cultivator, dispensary and import licences “for religious purposes.” These are granted to registered non-profit religious organisations whose founding documents state that cannabis “is required for religious purposes as a sacrament.” Sacramental dispensaries may dispense only to registered adherents, and the Act forbids dispensing cannabis to a child at a place of worship. The new bill keeps that framework but raises the minimum age for sacramental cannabis to 25, according to the bill’s explanatory note. No comparable provision exists for wine.
The law reaches Anglican altars more directly than it would have a few years ago. The Church in the Province of the West Indies made baptism, rather than confirmation, the gateway to Holy Communion beginning on Advent Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, under a resolution of its Provincial Synod. A pastoral letter from the Diocese of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands explaining the change said children may receive the Blood of Christ “once they reach junior high school (grade 7) or thereabouts.” That places them above the age of ten at which the new offence begins.
Anglican formularies also make it hard to withhold the cup. Article XXX of the Thirty-Nine Articles states that “the Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord’s Sacrament, by Christ’s ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike”.
Bishop Berkley said Anglicans in Trinidad use a low-alcohol wine. The church once imported an official communion wine that is no longer available and now often buys its wine from the Roman Catholic Church. Children and teenagers have long received it without any problem, he told the Guadian.
Catholic practice offers more ways to adjust. The Church teaches that Christ is present whole under either species, and communion in one kind is long established. Since 2003, the Vatican has also recognised mustum, grape juice whose fermentation has been suspended, as valid matter for the Eucharist where the local bishop permits it, under a circular letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Not every church is affected.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Port of Spain is aware of the issue but has not commented. During the Sept. 30 debate, Barry Padarath, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, said he and a fellow minister had met the Most Rev. Charles Jason Gordon, Archbishop of Port of Spain, on Feb. 6 to discuss “gambling, alcohol consumption, marijuana use among our nation’s youth.” He said that Archbishop Gordon had “lent his support publicly” when the Prime Minister first raised the issue, according to Hansard. Mr. Padarath did not say whether sacramental wine came up.
The law will not take effect until the President fixes a date by proclamation. Mr. Padarath has said the government’s position is that it “will not come into effect until 2027,” leaving time to work through operational issues, according to TTT News. Dr. Ellis Burris, president of the Inter-Religious Organisation, said the organisation had not consulted the government or the Attorney General. The IRO will take up the bill at its meeting on Nov. 21.