Communion wine, representing the blood of Jesus Christ, might be holy, but that hasn't kept it from being deemed illegal.
Mary Houseman, along with her husband, Roy, own Montana Church Supply on Central Avenue in Great Falls. The store sells everything churches need, from pews to communion bread to candles. Its products list used to include sacramental wine — until Houseman ran into a "glitch" in the law.
Houseman orders sacramental wine about twice a year. However, when she placed her order this fall, it never arrived. That was because the winemaker was told it didn't have a license to distribute wine in Montana, nor did Montana Church Supply have a license to sell it.
"We couldn't get our Christmas wine in," she said. "If they don't resolve this issue, we're not going to be able to get the wine in for Lent and Easter."
Montana Church Supply, previously called Reilly's, has been in business since 1979 and sold wine that whole time without being licensed.
When Houseman got in touch with the Montana Department of Revenue to figure out a solution to the problem, the agency's director, Dan Bucks, was surprised to find out there wasn't a provision in Montana law dealing with the sale of sacramental wine.
"I was astounded that this hadn't been addressed in the past when we found the problem," he said.
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20090215/NEWS01/902150302
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