Monks and coffee

In the good old days, Catholic parishes and religious orders used to raise money to pay their bills and lend a helping hand to the poor by holding jumble sales, fêtes, bring-’n-buy cake-fests and all sorts of variations on what has become generically known today as the lotto.

But times have changed, and demands for more funds have risen to the point where a lot of charities and religious congregations feel they can no longer rely on lay volunteer support alone, and have gone into business.

I first became aware of this trend some years ago in Italy when I visited the hermitage of St Galgano. That place is named after the arrogant Tuscan nobleman who tried to skewer Michael the Archangel with his sword. Having fallen off his high horse, both literally and figuratively, he devoted his life to the Lord, and became a hermit. He saved a child from a wolf, and had his arm torn off in the process. Today, if you visit his hermitage, you can view that very same arm, which is now ensconced in a glass case.

And while there, you can buy a bottle of wine flavoured by the local monks with Eucalyptus gumtree leaves. This wine, vaguely palatable, has a nose somewhat reminiscent of the Australian outback in sheep-shearing season. It was never destined to become a money-spinner, let alone make the pages of John Platter’s Wine Guide.

According to a report by Mark Pattison of Catholic News Service in the United States, something very businesslike and profitable is brewing in the Wyoming hamlet of Clark. There, a small but growing community of cloistered Carmelite monks has launched a coffee business.

Wyoming’s climate isn’t made for growing coffee, says Pattison, but the monks import coffee beans from many of the world’s coffee-growing regions, frequently blending them to get just the right taste and aroma. “Mystic Monk Coffee” now comes in 20 varieties.

“We monks like good coffee,” said Br Elias. Only 29 years old, he has three years in the new monastery under his cord. He is one of its longer-tenured members. “There’s nobody out there who provides a Catholic option for coffee that supports the Church, and an excellent cause. We prayed about it and our senior monks discerned it,” he said.

Interviewed by telephone from Clark while coffee-roasting machines whirred away behind him, Br Elias explained the monks’ activities. “We needed an industry that would not only be good work but would support us and pay the bills too. One of the brothers in the past worked in a coffee shop. He has roasted coffee and he knows coffee well. He has a good palate. He also has a sister who works on a coffee farm.” The monastery’s 13 monks fill about a thousand orders a month, and sales are growing. “We also wholesale for stores and for churches for fundraising. Some of them get 400 to 500 bags a shot,” said Br Elias. One group buys about 500kg of coffee at a time for US troops overseas. Business-like, the monks give that group a wholesale discount.

Of course the Vatican has led the way in terms of using the commercial world to raise funds. So far it has not started a global coffee enterprise, or Eucalyptus-wine brand, but simply plays the stock market, which it does with considerable success. It is going to be fascinating to see just how this new fad catches on among parishes and religious orders here in South Africa.

Will our formidable Catholic Women’s League develop and market a range of perfumes and raise trillions of rands for charity by exhorting women of the world to exude an odour of sanctity? And with the sub-prime fiasco having severely damaged the reputations of the world’s bankers, it is good to know that a solid and trustworthy Catholic organisation such as the Knights of Da Gama has a financial services company.

The possibilities to expand these services are limitless. Imagine being able to offer an insurance policy underwritten by the premise that “God Will Provide” and having a credit card that earns 20 plenary indulgences for every R7,50 spent! Not to mention a savings accounts offering automatic absolution for all venial sins for every R2,000 invested (mortals from R10,000) with a bonus of free marriage, baptism and funeral services redeemable at all registered Catholic parishes for investment amounts exceeding R100,000.

And if one can believe Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87), the combination of religion and business might be quite acceptable. He said: “No man ever manages a legitimate business without doing indirectly far more for other men than he is trying to do for himself.”