Trappist Father Richard Gans will celebrate his 60th anniversary as a Trappist priest with a Mass of thanksgiving at 8:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, at his hometown parish of St. Alexius in West Union. A coffee and doughnut gathering in the church basement will follow.
Father Gans made his solemn vows as a Trappist monk Aug. 15, 1956, and was ordained a priest in the same year in Spencer, Massachusetts. He has served all of his time at La Dehesa which later became Santa Marie de Miraflores, a Trappist monastery in Santiago, Chile. Many of those years he served as the abbot of the monastery.