Abbey to stop selling eggs after PETA protests disrupt monks' lives

Published: 2007-12-21

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (CNS) -- The head of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner has announced plans to shut down its egg production business in the next year and a half because protests by an animal rights group have disrupted the monks' "quiet life of prayer, work and sacred reading." But Abbot Stan Gumula said in a Dec. 19 statement that the Trappist monastery will need to come up with "a new industry to help us meet our daily expenses." Earlier in the year, a spokeswoman for the monastery said the approximately 9 million eggs produced each year by Mepkin's laying hens brought in about $140,000 a year, or 60 percent of the abbey's annual earned income. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which began criticizing the monastery's egg operation in February, praised Abbot Gumula's "compassionate decision" and said Americans should stop buying any eggs since "conditions at 95 percent of commercial egg factory farms are just as cruel as those at Mepkin Abbey."

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