Right brew to rebuild a broken town

A building reconstructed after the earthquake at the Abbey of San Benedetto in Monte, in Norcia, Italy. Eight years after devastating arthquakes ravaged central Italy, the reopening of a monastery is an inspiration for an area still struggling to recover. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

THEY may have chosen a contemplative life of prayer, detached from world affairs, but a small community of Benedictine monks threw a very big bash recently for the opening of their new monastery on a hill overlooking the central Italian town of Norcia, where St Benedict was born.

After a Mass and a seated dinner for 1,000 – about half of them Norcia residents – the monks officially settled in, eight years after a devastating earthquake upended a sizeable part of Norcia and destroyed their previous space.