Industry: Render unto Caesar

As they rushed to finish a 38,000-lb. order of jelly for shipment to Chicago last week, the workers in the preserves factory outside Spencer, Mass, would have made any boss happy. They worked relentlessly, spoke not a word, took no coffee or cigarette breaks, smiled constantly. Occasionally, they glanced up at a sign that spurred them on even more: IT is GOOD FOR us TO BE HERE. The contented workers were the Trappist monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey, and their thriving jelly business (1,230,000 jars a year) is typical of a fascinating—and rapidly growing-phenomenon: the successful business set up and run by a religious community.

From New York to California, dozens of communities of monks, nuns and brothers have found that the best way to support themselves and their works is to become enterprising entrepreneurs. Though they have no desire for riches, the religious communities have installed mass-production factories, are turning out cheese, wine, bread, jellies, fruit cake, even beef on the hoof, selling them both nationally and locally. Usually of excellent quality, their products have received a sales boost from the rising interest in gourmet foods and, in the case of such items as hearty monastic bread, from the nation’s growing health consciousness.

Wine & Youngsters. The biggest union of religion and enterprise is Christian Brothers wine, made in California’s Napa Valley by members of the Western Province of the Christian Brothers, the world’s largest teaching order (17,000 brothers). The brothers, who started making wine in 1868, run three wineries that produce more than a million cases of premium wines and brandy a year, more than twice the output of their nearest competitor.

The wineries are supervised by four Christian Brothers, headed by roly-poly Brother John Hoffman, 49; and 25 or 30 younger brothers help with the picking and crushing at harvest time. But most of the work is done by some 200 regular employees and about 100 extra harvest hands, who are all union workers.

The Christian Brothers produce modest wines, ranging from champagne to Johannisberger Riesling, in a modern, $7,000,000 plant that has the first stainless-steel grape-crushing machine in the industry. They refuse to advertise on radio, TV or billboards, because they consider it inappropriate. The brothers, like almost all the religious businesses, have long been exempt from taxation. But a new clause inserted in the tax laws in 1950 left their status in doubt (though it did not affect most other church-sponsored business). To escape the ambiguity of their situation, the brothers shook up their business organization in 1957, have been paying full federal taxes since.

Sales of their wines now virtually support the work of the entire Western Province and its 250 brothers, who teach in eleven schools, many of them completely or partially tuition-free. The brothers like to stress their education of youth instead of wine making, but cannot resist comparisons. Says Brother John: “Wine is like a youngster. If he comes from a good mother and father, if he gets a good home and good education, he grows up to be a good individual. A good wine is the same way.”

A Saint for Jelly? Among the religious entrepreneurs, the widest ranging are the Trappists, who are bound to manual labor by their monastic rule, do all of their own work, and communicate only in sign language. The 200 monks at Massachusetts’ St. Joseph’s Abbey decided to go into the jelly business in 1954, after a batch of homemade jelly, made up with advice from a local housewife (whom they jokingly promise to make a saint), sold out at a fair. They put one monk to reading books on jellies and production techniques, assigned another with a degree in economics to run the business, by 1957 had a fully mechanized kitchen.

The monks now turn out 27 flavors (e.g., pineapple-mint, rhubarb-orange, damson plum) in a factory on their 2,300-acre property, work in shifts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. over the steaming vats. The jellies are distributed in all 50 states and in Canada by Heublein, Inc. (packaged cocktails). They sell for slightly more than similar jellies. “We have a fair markup,” says Father John Holohan, St. Joseph’s subprior (who has permission to talk because he must confer with “the outside world”). “We have never wanted to take advantage of our free labor and our tax-exempt position.” The monks are building a new and automated kitchen, have set themselves a goal of 3,000,000 jars of jelly a year by 1962.

Playing on the Trappist reputation for making superior products down through the ages (the order was founded in the 11th century), other monasteries have also decided to go to market as a means of support:

¶ The 200 monks of Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey, near Bardstown, Ky., have a thriving mail order business in cheese, fruit cakes, hams, bacon and summer sausage. They are noted for their cheese, which is made according to a secret formula originated at the Trappist monastery in Port du Salut, France, 700 years ago; only two monks at Gethsemani know the secret, the cheesemaker and an apprentice.

¶ St. Benedict’s Abbey, near Aspen, Colo., has a 3,800-acre ranch, 500 head of cattle—and monks who ride horses like cowboys. The monks’ reputation for quality is so good that Denver stockyards buy their cattle sight unseen.

¶ The 52 monks of the Abbey of the Genesee, near Rochester, N.Y., introduced New Yorkers to Monks’ Bread, small and firm loaves of white, whole wheat and raisin bread, some of it made from a 9th century formula. The demand was so great that they set up a modern automatic bakery. But they turned down an adman’s suggestion that, because they work in silence, they use the slogan: “Baked in Silence. Too Good for Words.”

¶ The Trappistine nuns, the women’s branch of the Trappists, produce four types of expensive candies (e.g., caramels, butter nut-munch) at St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, Mass., sell them at de luxe shops throughout the U.S.

To all of the monasteries, being in business is secondary to their real work, which is devoting themselves to contemplation. But the businessmen in monk’s clothing know how to adapt themselves to Caesar’s world as well. “We had to choose between operating our-business on our own tempo or getting into the economic cycle of progress,” says St. Joseph’s Father Holohan. The monks chose progress.