goes to dairy farmers who feed it to their cattle.
Father Isaac said there are 15 monks working in
the brewery. Supervising the brewing operation is Hu-
bert deHalleux, a Belgian who has a master’s degree in
brewing science. He and his wife will be here for about
two years, training the Trappists. There also are several
Italian and German experts working out any problems
in the bottling plant.
The monks at the abbey will be able to have the ale at
Sunday dinner and on special holidays, Father Whebee
said. They were recently introduced to at dinner.
“They liked it,” he said.
Clew is contributing editor at The Catholic Free
Press, newspaper of the Diocese of Worcester.
F
ather
B
arron
From page 6
welcome a softening of sexual norms? Well, of course.
But none of these data prove much of anything, beyond
the fact that living a heroically virtuous life is difficult.
As in regard to just war, a compromising of the ideal
here would represent an abdication of the Church’s fun-
damental responsibility of equipping the saints.
However, here is the flip-side. The Catholic Church
couples its extraordinary moral demand with an extraor-
dinarily lenient penitential system. Suppose the pilot of
the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
(I believe he was a Catholic) came into a confessional
box and, in an attitude of sincere repentance, confessed
the sin of contributing to the deaths of 100,000 innocent
people. The priest would certainly give him counsel and
perhaps assign a severe penance, but he would then say,
“I absolve you of all your sins, in the name of the Fa-
ther, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And that
man’s sins, before God, would be wiped away. Period.
The Church calls people to be not spiritual medioc-
rities, but great saints, and this is why its moral ideals
are so stringent. Yet the Church also mediates the infi-
nite mercy of God to those who fail to live up to that
ideal (which means practically everyone). This is why
its forgiveness is so generous and so absolute. To grasp
both of these extremes is to understand the Catholic ap-
proach to morality.
Father Robert Barron is the founder of the glob-
al ministry, Word on Fire, and the Francis Cardinal
George Professor of Faith and Culture at University of
St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. He is the creator of
a new ten episode documentary series called “Catholi-
cism” airing on PBS stations and EWTN. Learn more
about the series at
T
rappists
A
le
From page 3
Brewery produce just one product. They also suggested,
Father Keeley said, that “you buy the very best equip-
ment you can find and maybe a bit more.”
The brewery, costing several million dollars, was fi-
nanced by some of the Trappists’ funds and bank loans.
It was named the Spencer Brewery because, as Father
Dominic Whebee, prior, said, the Trappist tradition is to
name the facility after the town where it is located.
The Trappists at St. Joseph Abbey researched the
craft of beer-making and sent two Trappist brothers to
Belgium -- one for six months, the other for seven -- to
learn how ale is made in monasteries there. The Spencer
brewery uses water from wells on the abbey grounds,
malt barley from the Midwest, Canada and upstate New
York, and hops from the West Coast.
Some of that could change. In a field near the brew-
ery the Trappists planted 10 acres of barley last Sep-
To advertise in
the
Gulf Pine
Catholic,
call
(228) 702-2127
for more
information.
tember. It should be ready for harvest in July or August,
Father Isaac said, and could be used in the brewery.
To start the brewing process, grain, kept in a silo
outside the brewery, is pumped into one of three huge
stainless steel kettles and mixed with water. At various
stages the grain is removed, hops are added, the liquid
is cooled, then piped into fermenting vessels where the
yeast -- called “family yeast” because it is like the yeast
used by the European Trappists -- is added.
When it is ready it flows to the bottling area where
the bottles are filled and capped and put into four-
packs. They are put in cardboard cases, six four-packs
to a case. The cases are put on wood pallets, wrapped
in plastic and stored in a temperature-controlled ware-
house. The entire process is automated on an assembly
line requiring human eyes but not human hands.
It takes six hours to brew the ale, two weeks for it to
ferment, and three weeks in the warehouse to allow the
yeast to work.
The grain, filtered out in the early brewing stages,
8
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
February 28, 2014
ST. JUDE NOVENA.
May the Sacred Heart
of Jesus be adored, glorified, loved and
preserved throughout the world now and
forever. Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us. St.
Jude, Worker of Miracles, pray for us. St. Jude,
Helper of the hopeless, pray for us. Say this
prayer 9 times a day. By the 8th day your
prayer will be answered. It has never been
known to fail. Publication must be promised.
Thank you St. Jude for granting my petition.
RFG
For favors
granted, Thanks
to our Lord, Our
Lady of Perpetual
Help and St. Jude.
ML
