Brother Herman Zaccarelli and the influence of Vatican II on Catholic institutional food service

Abstract

ABSTRACT In post-World War II United States, a Holy Cross monk named Herman Zaccarelli viewed Vatican II as an opening for the modernising of food in Catholic religious institutions. Brother Herman founded the Food Research Center for Catholic Institutions on the campus of Stonehill College outside Boston, which ran conferences and seminars for monks and nuns who sought to change their approach to cooking and eating. Zaccarelli, a product of mid-twentieth century American cultural ideas and mores, grounded his efforts in religious obligation and located the change he sought within the “spirit of Vatican II”. Many of the new ideas and practices ran counter to long-held habits and rituals regarding food – habits of restraint, asceticism and sacrifice, which set up intergenerational tensions. This story focuses on food to illustrate these larger tensions and transformations in post-WWII American Catholicism.