Sobriety is an extremely important factor in the positive implementation of evangelical principles in everyday life. Maintaining abstinence from alcohol is important for every community, beginning with the family, continuing through the parish, and ending with the national or state community. Every member of a community who possesses this virtue is capable of properly using the discernment of moral good and evil granted to them, as well as of putting it into practice. Sobriety understood in this way becomes a value on which a person's moral perfection is shaped.
The important significance that sobriety holds for religious and moral life created a need to spread an anti-alcohol attitude among the parish community, especially during celebrations connected with receiving the holy sacraments.
The first initiative in this direction undertaken by the pastoral ministers was the Week of Prayers for the Sobriety of the Nation, organized from 28 February to 6 March 1971. For seven days, evening Masses included sermons intended to make the faithful more aware of the spreading evil of alcoholism. In addition, a penitential Stations of the Cross was held on Friday, and a supplicatory service to Our Lady of Perpetual Help on Saturday, asking her to save the entire nation from the flood of drunkenness. At the end of the week, many parishioners of various ages pledged complete abstinence for a certain period or for their entire lives.
Every year, on the day of their First Holy Communion, all children pledged absolute abstinence from tobacco and alcohol until the age of eighteen, in the presence of the exposed Blessed Sacrament and their families. However, this pledge could do little when First Communion celebrations repeatedly turned into drinking bouts, while the isolated child quickly lost the values that the priests had tried so hard to instill in them. Soon, Rev. Prelate Edward Bober, who taught the First Communion children, began demanding an attitude of sobriety from the parents, expressed through a commitment to organize the First Communion celebration without alcohol and to focus more on its spiritual experience. During the pre-Communion meeting, the parents pledged sobriety in the presence of the dean, submitting a written declaration of the following or similar wording: "Taking responsibility for the religious upbringing of our children, as Catholic parents we undertake in conscience to organize the family celebration on the day of our children's First Holy Communion without alcohol."
The voluntary nature of the pledge and the parents' handwritten signatures indicate that the above promises were to be kept. Their number, however, depended on the number of children receiving First Holy Communion in a given year and was as follows:
Based on the above data, it can be stated that the sobriety campaign promoted by the parish's pastoral ministers, although initially encountering some resistance from the parents, gained considerable momentum toward the end of the period under discussion, indicating the faithful's positive attitude. It should also be added that similar sobriety campaigns were conducted as part of preparation for the other sacraments, but the effects of these efforts were smaller compared with those mentioned above.
An attitude of sobriety could also be observed among Catholics who voluntarily renounced alcohol for a certain period. A total of 194 people entered their names in the sobriety register, pledging abstinence from alcohol during Lent, Advent, until entering into marriage, or during their working hours.
Ultimately, it can therefore be said that the work of abstinence and sobriety in the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish contributed to defending values that influence a person's religious and moral life.