A Jesuit Spectacle

Jesuit priest: Eating meat is cruel, unhealthy -- and immoral

Jul 08, 2008 Permalink

By Bruce Tomaso
In this column for National Catholic Reporter, the Rev. John Dear, Jesuit priest, peace activist and, it turns out, dedicated vegetarian, writes about the moral implications of a diet based on consumption of meat. Every year, he says, 760 million tons of grain "go into the bellies of farmed animals, this to fatten them up so that sirloin, hamburgers and pork roast grace the tables of First-World people."Dear says "conscience dictates" that grain should stay where it's grown and "be fed to the local malnourished poor, not to the chickens destined for our KFC buckets."

He also argues that meat-eating contributes to global warming, water pollution and the depletion of fossil fuel supplies.

And that it leads to "the vicious torture" of livestock. "Animals have feelings," he writes, "they suffer; they have needs and desires. They were created by God to raise their families and breath fresh air; and if chickens to peck in the grass, if pigs to root in the soil. Today's farms don't let them do anything God designed them to do."