Carmelite nuns who traditionally produce communion hosts for French churches have launched a campaign against cheaper imported Polish hosts produced by a secular workforce. In a temporal battle that threatened to take the bread from their mouths, nuns producing communion wafers for French churches were shocked to learn that the religious authorities at Lourdes were contemplating buying cheaper hosts from Poland, the Guardian reports.
Sister Marcelline, from the Carmelite convent at Carmel de Saint Germain-en-Laye just outside Paris, said: “Foreign producers, namely those from Poland, have undercut the market.”
For many of France’s 36 religious communities who make 140m host wafers every year and the additional 30 who live off the dwindling sales, the income is vital for their survival.
The Lourdes church has since announced it would continue to buy wafers made in France - but only after negotiating a price reduction.
In order to spread the word the convents have launched a publicity campaign with a video entitled Les boulangères de Dieu (God’s Bakers).
However, Sister Marcelline’s lament about the “people in purchasing”, will have a familiar ring to anyone involved in business.
“Before it was easier: you just had a word with the priest, but today material matters are often dealt with by lay people,” she said.
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