Father Wilson sends along this oldie but goodie from Dom Bettinelli's blog, recounting Father George Rutler's 2003 letter to the editor of Crisis magazine, responding to something or other argued by the Catholic Vegetarian Society. This is one of the best letters to the editor ever:
I was delighted to read the Manichaean ramblings of Danel Paden, director of the Catholic Vegetarian Society (“Letters,” June 2003). It confirmed my theory that fanaticism in Western society alternates between nudism and vegetarianism, both of which contradict the order of grace.As an optimist, I happily trust that Paden confines his extreme commitments to vegetarianism.
Taste is one thing; it is another thing to condemn meat eating as “evil” and permissible only “in rare and unfortunate circumstances.” Paden disagrees with no less an authority than God, Who forbids us to call any edible unworthy (Mark 7: 18-19), and Who enjoins St Peter to eat pork chops and lobster in one of my favorite revelations (Acts 10: 9-16). Does the Catholic Vegetarian Society think that our Lord was wrong to have served up fish to the 5,000, or should He have refrained from eating the Passover Lamb? When He rose from the dead and appeared in the Upper Room, He did not ask for a bowl of Cheerios, nor did He whip up a meatless omelette on the shore of Galilee.
Man was made to eat flesh (Genesis 1: 26-31; 9: 1-6), with the exception of human flesh. I stand on record against cannibalism, whether it be inflicted upon the Mbuti Pygmies by the Congolese Army or on larger people by a maniac in Milwaukee. But I am also grateful that the benevolent father in the parable did not welcome his prodigal son home with a bowl of radishes.
Vegetarians assume an unedifying posture of detachment from the sufferings of vegetables that are mashed, stewed, diced, and shredded. In expensive restaurants, cherries are publicly burned in brandy to the applause of diners. It is not uncommon for people to submerge olives in iced gin and twist the peels of lemons. Be indignant, vegetarian, but not so selectively indignant that the bleat of the lamb and the plaintive moo of the cow drown out the whine of our brother the bean and the quiet sigh of the cauliflower.
Vegetables have reactive impulses. Were we to confine our diet to creatures that lacked sense and do not even respond to light, we could only eat liturgists and liberal Democrats.
The Rev. George W. Rutler
New York City
UPDATE: Taylor Clark has a funny reflection on his life as a vegetarian. Excerpt:
Please don't try to convince us that being vegetarian is somehow wrong. If you're concerned for my health, that's very nice, though you can rest assured that I'm in shipshape. If you want to have an amiable tête-à-tête about vegetarianism, that's great. But if you insist on being the aggressive blowhard who takes meatlessness as a personal insult and rails about what fools we all are, you're only going to persuade me that you're a dickhead. When someone says he's Catholic, you probably don't start the stump speech about how God is a lie created to enslave the ignorant masses, and it's equally offensive to berate an herbivore. I know you think we're crazy. That's neat. But seeing as I've endured the hassle of being a vegetarian for several years now, perhaps I've given this a little thought.
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I am surprised that Father George W. Rutler (and apparently this website) would find it amusing to compare the suffering of slaughtered animals to that of mashed vegetables. Plants do not have nervous systems like we do - and we are animals.
I am seriously interested in converting to Catholicism from Protestantism (Presbyterian), but this guy makes The International Society for Krishna Consciousness look like a better choice. (really)
I will give Catholicism another chance, but as a person searching for a religion with more compassion for other animal species, I am deeply disappointed.
"What is it about only eating vegetables that makes people think they are morally superior? Just wondering."
Wow, the milk of human kindness really runs through some of you people, certainly the author. God did not condone eating meat until after the flood, when all the vegetation was destroyed. Ooops! Here I go being "morally superior" again. Oh, forget the animals, they can just sit in their own excrement, get dragged to slaughter with broken legs due to malnutrition and overmilking and watch their calves be dragged away in front of their eyes and shot. Behind every poultry farm their are dumpsters filled with live male chicks, 280 million a year are thrown away or suffocated in garbage bags. 90 percent of all pigs have pneumonia due to inhaling fumes and dust. Millions of breeding sows cannot even turn around in their iron maidens and often break their legs trying to escape. They are sometimes even strapped to the floor to nurse thier young.
Why don't you educate yourself on the issues instead of making knee-jerk statements. This was one of the most childish, smug and mean spirited little diatribes I think I have ever read. It is sickening enough when coming from some corporate shill for he meat industry, but to see it on a religious site with half the sheeple nodding in agreement, well that's really disturbing. What is your idea of "morality"? Evidently it doesn't include being kind to the weak, the helpless, the suffering, the friendless and the voiceless. How about "With all thy getting, get thee understanding." I used to be Catholic myself until the hypocrisy finally got to me. Nice to see nothing has changed. Still congratulating yourselves on 2,000 years of tradition unhampered by progress.
"According to a recent article in US News & World Report, some 40 billion pounds a year of slaughterhouse wastes (blood, bone and viscera) plus the remains of millions of euthanized cats and dogs from veterinarians and shelters, are rendered annually into livestock feed. Feed manufacturers and farmers also have begun using or trying out dehydrated food garbage, fats from restaurant fryers and grease traps, cement-kiln dust, newspapers, cardboard and sawdust. Researchers have also experimented with cattle, hog
and human sewage. When they are fed grain, it is often corn which they cannot digest and which ulcerates their stomachs, adding even more antibiotics to the drugs, hormones and pesticides they already ingest. Animals being transported from farms to stock yards
and slaughter houses may freeze to the walls or the floor or die of heat and suffocation in unventilated trucks. They may legally be deprived of water for up to 36 hours while being transported. Animals too weak to walk on or off a live stock transport are fork lifted or dragged by chains to slaughter. Even the minimal
standards that exist are routinely broken while whistle blowers are
reprimanded or fired. Slaughter house atrocities documented by undercover workers include: shoving and slamming animals against walls and floors who have been stunned and paralyzed from the neck down before slaughter; poking out eyes; sending still conscious animals through the meat processing to be dismembered alive and lowering still conscious animals into boiling in vats to process their hides. In 1930 the average dairy cow produced about 12 pounds (1 1/2 gal) of milk per day. By 1988, the average was 39 pounds per day. This was accomplished by aggressive practices such as drugs, forced feeding and selective breeding to obtain dairy cows that produced a lot of pituitary hormones. Today, synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH, produced by Monsanto) is used to bring the average up to 50 pounds (over 6 gal) of milk per day. Factory farmed cattle live out their bleak lives in stalls or mud feed lots in unnaturally large herds constantly being impregnated by artificial insemination. This abuse of already stressed, drugged, improperly fed, nutrient deprived, over-milked cows naturally encourages illness and
infection; particularly of the udders. No wonder so many collapse even before they are slaughtered (at about 42 months, as opposed to the normal life expectency of 12 years for grass fed cattle). Naturally, all of these substances as well as pus from infection are passed on to the consumer of dairy products.
Other than veal (whose popularity has declined due to successful ad
campaigns) the dairy industry has no use for male calves who are dragged away from their distraught mothers shortly after birth. Domentation of the many abuses on dairy farms include: male calves barely old enough to stand being dragged in chains to slaughter and male calves being thrown into pits and shot. Around 25% of male calves are chained inside a wooden crate for sixteen weeks to produce veal. These calves are purposely deprived of iron and kept in the dark. They suffer from constant diarrhea and lie in their own
excrement, unable to walk or stand.
Approximately one third of the earth's land surface is used to graze or grow feed for livestock including 70% of former Amazon rain forests burned or cut down for pasture. A report released on November 19, 2006 by the United Nations (FAO) called Live Stock's Long
Shadow determined that raising animals for food generates about 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined. 67% of U.S. grain in this country is used to feed livestock and 70% of Africa's grain is shipped to Europe to feed livestock. Farm animals consume one half of the earth's water supply."
I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat, for the wild animals I have provided grass and leafy plants.
Genesis 1:29
Not only will the world be at peace when Christ rules on earth Isaiah 2:1-5, but wild animals and deadly poisonous snakes will be transformed harmless. Isaiah 11:6-9
If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men. St. Francis of Assisi
Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission to be of service to them whenever they require it. St. Francis of Assisi
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when it's recipient has no power. Humanity's true moral test, it's fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view) consists of it's attitude towards those who are at it's mercy: animals. In this respect human kind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984
He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye. Buddha
The eating of meat extinguishes the great seed of compassion. Buddha
"What is it about only eating vegetables that makes people think they are morally superior? Just wondering."
Wow, the milk of human kindness really runs through some of you people, certainly the author. God did not condone eating meat until after the flood, when all the vegetation was destroyed. Ooops! Here I go being "morally superior" again. Oh, forget the animals, they can just sit in their own excrement, get dragged to slaughter with broken legs due to malnutrition and overmilking and watch their calves be dragged away in front of their eyes and shot. Behind every poultry farm their are dumpsters filled with live male chicks, 280 million a year are thrown away or suffocated in garbage bags. 90 percent of all pigs have pneumonia due to inhaling fumes and dust. Millions of breeding sows cannot even turn around in their iron maidens and often break their legs trying to escape. They are sometimes even strapped to the floor to nurse thier young.
Why don't you educate yourself on the issues instead of making knee-jerk statements. This was one of the most childish, smug and mean spirited little diatribes I think I have ever read. It is sickening enough when coming from some corporate shill for he meat industry, but to see it on a religious site with half the sheeple nodding in agreement, well that's really disturbing. What is your idea of "morality"? Evidently it doesn't include being kind to the weak, the helpless, the suffering, the friendless and the voiceless. How about "With all thy getting, get thee understanding." I used to be Catholic myself until the hypocrisy finally got to me. Nice to see nothing has changed. Still congratulating yourselves on 2,000 years of tradition unhampered by progress.
"According to a recent article in US News & World Report, some 40 billion pounds a year of slaughterhouse wastes (blood, bone and viscera) plus the remains of millions of euthanized cats and dogs from veterinarians and shelters, are rendered annually into livestock feed. Feed manufacturers and farmers also have begun using or trying out dehydrated food garbage, fats from restaurant fryers and grease traps, cement-kiln dust, newspapers, cardboard and sawdust. Researchers have also experimented with cattle, hog
and human sewage. When they are fed grain, it is often corn which they cannot digest and which ulcerates their stomachs, adding even more antibiotics to the drugs, hormones and pesticides they already ingest. Animals being transported from farms to stock yards
and slaughter houses may freeze to the walls or the floor or die of heat and suffocation in unventilated trucks. They may legally be deprived of water for up to 36 hours while being transported. Animals too weak to walk on or off a live stock transport are fork lifted or dragged by chains to slaughter. Even the minimal
standards that exist are routinely broken while whistle blowers are
reprimanded or fired. Slaughter house atrocities documented by undercover workers include: shoving and slamming animals against walls and floors who have been stunned and paralyzed from the neck down before slaughter; poking out eyes; sending still conscious animals through the meat processing to be dismembered alive and lowering still conscious animals into boiling in vats to process their hides. In 1930 the average dairy cow produced about 12 pounds (1 1/2 gal) of milk per day. By 1988, the average was 39 pounds per day. This was accomplished by aggressive practices such as drugs, forced feeding and selective breeding to obtain dairy cows that produced a lot of pituitary hormones. Today, synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH, produced by Monsanto) is used to bring the average up to 50 pounds (over 6 gal) of milk per day. Factory farmed cattle live out their bleak lives in stalls or mud feed lots in unnaturally large herds constantly being impregnated by artificial insemination. This abuse of already stressed, drugged, improperly fed, nutrient deprived, over-milked cows naturally encourages illness and
infection; particularly of the udders. No wonder so many collapse even before they are slaughtered (at about 42 months, as opposed to the normal life expectency of 12 years for grass fed cattle). Naturally, all of these substances as well as pus from infection are passed on to the consumer of dairy products.
Other than veal (whose popularity has declined due to successful ad
campaigns) the dairy industry has no use for male calves who are dragged away from their distraught mothers shortly after birth. Domentation of the many abuses on dairy farms include: male calves barely old enough to stand being dragged in chains to slaughter and male calves being thrown into pits and shot. Around 25% of male calves are chained inside a wooden crate for sixteen weeks to produce veal. These calves are purposely deprived of iron and kept in the dark. They suffer from constant diarrhea and lie in their own
excrement, unable to walk or stand.
Approximately one third of the earth's land surface is used to graze or grow feed for livestock including 70% of former Amazon rain forests burned or cut down for pasture. A report released on November 19, 2006 by the United Nations (FAO) called Live Stock's Long
Shadow determined that raising animals for food generates about 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined. 67% of U.S. grain in this country is used to feed livestock and 70% of Africa's grain is shipped to Europe to feed livestock. Farm animals consume one half of the earth's water supply."
I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat, for the wild animals I have provided grass and leafy plants.
Genesis 1:29
Not only will the world be at peace when Christ rules on earth Isaiah 2:1-5, but wild animals and deadly poisonous snakes will be transformed harmless. Isaiah 11:6-9
If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men. St. Francis of Assisi
Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission to be of service to them whenever they require it. St. Francis of Assisi
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when it's recipient has no power. Humanity's true moral test, it's fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view) consists of it's attitude towards those who are at it's mercy: animals. In this respect human kind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984
He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye. Buddha
The eating of meat extinguishes the great seed of compassion. Buddha
But what about the transubstantion? Doesn't it become meat?
We've begun a group over on Catholic Answers for Catholic vegetarians and vegans and anyone who has questions about why this would resonate with faith... all are welcome!
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