"In Catholicsm, the Pint, the Pipe, and the Cross can all fit together." ~ GK Chesterton.
Consumption of alcohol is mandatory at certain times (as part of Mass) and forbidden at other times (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but traditionally every Friday and all of Lent).
Also I thought I was going to be corrected on the other part of my claim. Apparently abstaining from alcohol on fast days isn't centralized Catholic doctrine and bishops/archbishops have some discretion on what they tell their congregations to abstain from.
In the middle ages, 'small beer' [0] was a low-alcohol drink which because of the brewing process was often safer than bacteria-contaminated water from some natural sources such as wells and streams
While some Methodists now drink alcohol, they historically didn't and still won't allow it in their church buildings (I used to play in an amateur orchestra who had to serve non-alcoholic interval refreshments when we hired a Methodist church for our concert).
The majority of Christians worldwide, though, belong to denominations with no proscription against alcohol.
Besides the rules to give the Trappist label were :
* The beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery, either by the monks themselves or under their supervision.
* The brewery must be of secondary importance within the monastery and it should witness to the business practices proper to a monastic way of life.
* The brewery is not intended to be a profit-making venture. The income covers the living expenses of the monks and the maintenance of the buildings and grounds. Whatever remains is donated to charity for social work and to help persons in need.
Yesterday I saw this on Project Gutenberg and I felt inspired to share it here. I woke up and saw it on the front page, which is always an interesting little thing that kind of makes my day.
I would be really interested in hearing more about your experience in the monastery, if you're willing to share.
Ancedotal evidence but the wife of one of my cousins explicitly chose not to work in spite of having the required qualifications as a dentist, simply because she doesn't want to work and just wants to raise her children. Even though they live in an expensive city. Of course, you'd be hard pressed to find such examples these days.
On the other hand, I have cousins in marriages where both are forced to work because they live in an expensive city where one person's salary is often not enough to cover living expenses. And as trends go, I think we'll be seeing more of the workers by "force" example in the coming years.
Increasingly the trend I've observed within my large extended family and my fiancée's family (different cultures altogether) is that the wives in more affluent families tend to work as either housewives or in less taxing roles where they can still take care of the house, even if they can afford servants and carers, while the less affluent ones are required to have two breadwinners.
Many people are in a situation where they can't make the choice to exclusively do care work, due to financial constraints, and much of the care work is done by women who also work for money alongside of it. So in a way, being wealthy enough to have one person concentrate on maintaining the house is lucky. At the same time, it's a risky choice, because it leads to financial dependency on the partner, and marriages tend to end.
Liberties constrain, constraints liberate.
The things we can lear from programming language theory!
Seek freedom and be a slave to your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
Reminds me of this part of a Thomas Merton audio piece that I just listened to which you might enjoy (~22:50 to ~35:01): https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1370&v=Zr3V-BnENmA&feature=y...