Vegetarianism in Catholicism

Catholic Vegetarians



GREATER THINGS SHALL YOU DO THAN I HAVE DONE
SAID JESUS CHRIST TO HIS FOLLOWERS:

What you have done to these the least of My brethren you have done unto Me.

CATHOLIC VEGETARIAN SAINTS


St Francis of Assisi, St Clare, stigmatist St Therese Neumann, St. Martin de Porres, St John Chrysostom, St Anthony of Padua who preached to fishes when humans would not listen.. St Nicholas of Tolentino* believed they were following the example of Jesus in not eating His animals. Trappists, Cistercians, Benedictines, Franciscans all have had a tradition of vegetarian diet, to which many still adhere. The pretzel was says George Cornell former AP religion writer a Lenten bread, symbolizing arms folded in prayer.. Lentils were named as such because they were a Lenten vegetarian alternative to animal flesh. Meatless Fridays were the last vestige of early Christian abstinence from meat in following
Christ's example. A papal bull once excommunicated anyone who attended a bullfight because the barbaric cruelty in them. This was later amended to excommunicate only priests who blessed bullfighting.
BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Genesis 1: 29, Isaiah 65, Daniel 1 Exodus 26: 34 are some of the thousands of quotes in the Bible on vegetarian diet. The command to feed the hungry, given by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount, implies vegetarianism since the flesh of animals yields 100 to 1000 lbs an acre, dairy products around 10,000 lbs. an acre, some vegetables, 81,000 lbs. an acre, and fruits from centenarian fruit trees 450,000 or more lbs. an acre. Therefore Genesis fruit trees yield 450 times what slaughterhouses yield. Daniel O'Steen, of National Right To Life, felt he must be consistent in his prolife stance and so many years ago became a vegetarian. Clare Obis, mother of 6 boys, created a successful media campaign when Mike Royko refused to allow her vegetarian gluten ribs in his cooking contest. Fr. Ron Lengwin of KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh believes that the apple Adam ate was the first heart of a butchered animal. Rep Dennis Kucinich (Democrat Cleveland) is a vegan who has worked for the rights of blue collar laborers, for the
environment, and for peace. Vegetarian monasteries in Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, Ohio serve only meatless meals.. Ron Pickarsky, former Catholic brother, now married,
has worked with commercial establishments helping them to transition http://www.eco-cuisine.com
JB exec of an Ohio corporation, rings a bell for the Knights of Columbus in public places, and has in the past inquired where he could get vegan no feather sleeping bags to be consistent in his vegetarian diet. D. Marshall, New York homeless shelter worker, is a vegetarian who does not proselytize the poor who come in to his welcoming inn. Catholic colleges such as Georgetown have responded to the growing number of their vegan students by providing options. Thomas Merton, author of Seven Story Mountain and Trappist monk, was a vegetarian, and activist for interfaith cooperation. For this he may have been murdered. EL, New York environmentalist, poet, and mystic, originally became vegetarian for economic reasons, while one of his teachers, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, eats no meat. CW, Catholic nurse, was nursing her child one day when a mosquito landed on her arm. She decided to nurse him too. One Catholic seminarian experimented with pot once.. and his perceptions slowed down. The chicken leg he was gnawing on became the leg of a chicken. That day he stopped eating meat and stopped smoking pot. A Catholic secretary for Cleveland Amory's Fund For Animals became vegan. K Fromer Blanc, Brooklyn nun, is a vegetarian as are millions of other Catholics. Father Mario Mazzoleni, now deceased, wrote on his decision to become vegetarian. His book is translated
by a Notre Dame professor.The temptation to eat meat is chemical in nature, as the uric acid in meat is more addictive than caffein since it is trioxypurine or 3 oxypurines while caffein is dioxypurine or 2. Exodus 26: 34 is a command not to kill. Governor Jesse Ventura in reference to the death penalty (for animals too) has said that that command is not asterisked with exceptions. St Thomas in the Thomasine Gospel
has many references to the fruiteating of Christ. Thomas, the skeptical apostle, went to Madras India where even today are millions of Catholic descendants of his preaching.
Cesar Chavez, the saintly activist for the rights of farm workers, continued the tradition of nonviolence in his labor organizing as well as his diet. He and Gandhi looked to Leo Tolstoy, Russian Catholic, who wrote The Kingdom of God is Within You.
Albert of Michigan, a Catholic paraplegic, has spent much time researching Catholic vegetarianism in history. He says that the word 'opsarian' means 'pickled fish' and is the Greek word for the fish Jesus created, meaning that Jesus did not materialize freshly suffocated fish but materialized processed fish. http://www.nofishing.net
Francisco Martin, Madrid Spain secretary of the IVU http://www.ivu.org is a Catholic vegan activist. Colman McCarthy, former Trappist and syndicated columnist, lectures around the world on peace studies and has long been mostly fruitarian. Bruce Friedrich, Catholic of PETA, ran their Jesus Was Vegetarian campaign.
(http://www.jesusveg.com) St Blaize's throat protection is not necessary if one stops
eating innocent fishes, suffocated and smothered, with their eyes and throats ripped out by vicious hooks. http://www.nofishing.net The countries with the most
fish consumption have the most stomach cancer. Many members of the Catholic Worker community as their founder Dorothy Day follow vegetarian diet
in Matthew 25 and many other homes. http://www.catholicworker.org
http://www.paxchristiusa.org Dr. Virginia Bourquardez, who once
hitchhiked for the first time at the age of 77 when her ride dematerialized,
worked her entire life for animals, and became a vegetarian in her 70's.
Malcolm Muggeridge the British intellectual abstained from meat in later years..
Helen Jones of the National Catholic Soc. For Animal Welfare worked with her
sister Ruth out of their Clark Summit Pennsylvania home. Leonardo Da Vinci,
a Catholic, was also a fruitarian. Danny DeVito protects insect life as well
as mammals.
Christian vegetarian sites
http://www.egroups.com/messages/catholicveg http://www.jesusveg.com
http://www.compassionatespirit.com http://www.all-creatures.org
http://www.hacres.com http://www.egroups.com/messages/salvarmy/2
Others
http://www.pcrm.org http://www.notmilk.comhttp://www.madcowboy.com http://www.ivu.org http//www.acorn.net/fruitarian
http://www.meatout.com http://www.wfad.org http://www.animalsagenda.org
tp://www.peta.net http://www.hsus.org
http://groups.msn.com/bioterror
http://www.egroups.com/messages/catholicveg/118
http://groups.msn.com/stopmowing
Fr. Mario Mazzoleni on his decision to become vegetarian (after 3 years as a strict vegetarian, Fr. Mario Mazzoleni speaks of a desire for meat. * see above
the addictive trioxypurine in meat) I would be a hypocrite if I led the reader to believe that I was strong enough to be perfectly faithful to my Lenten resolution. ..I
hadn't yet completely resolved my desire for meat - and so the repressed desire
was floating to the surface. It is a fact that the minute I would sit down to meditate, the most succulent meals would pass in front of my mind, full of fragrant roasted chickens and various sausages. What to do? If I was going to ruin all my meditations for a
roast chicken, it would be better to eliminate the problem by facing it head on. And so after 3 years of strict vegetarianism, I decided to get rid of the desire once and for all by satiating myself with a meat dinner. After all, I told myself to quiet my sense of guilt, "It isn't a crime to eat meat, and I can't say that because I'm vegetarian I'm better than many people who are carnivorous." It was almost a traumatic experience. I remembered an analogous experience of Gandhi's that he recounted in his autobiography. Convinced by a friend that India could be liberated only by the grit
of someone who ate meat, he hid himself on a river bank to consume some barbecued baby goat meat, and the next night he could feel bleating in his chest. Instead of enjoying the coveted snack in peace, the minute this little faithbreaker set his teeth into the cruel repast* (* a reference to Dante's Inferno.. in which
meat is described as a cruel repast in XXXIII.1) he was himself bitten by remorse and anxiety. I kept seeing the animal alive in front of me, and this inhibited the desire that was so enticing when it was simply mental. I immediately noticed some other effects, physical as well as psychic. My intestines held that food much longer than they kept vegetables,and my sense of smell, made sensitive by several years of vegetarianism,
was able to detect the odor of the cooked animal on my skin. It was a disagreeable sensation. As for my psyche, I noticed that my mind, which during my 3 year "Lent" was no longer seriously agitated by unwanted thoughts, suffered a set back from that carne-vale (meat festival); polluting throughts started to enter again in triumph. It
was a lesson. As always it is experience more than words that has the
greater power of persuasion. The decision to adopt a vegetarian diet
was motivated also by a religious actor. I knew that I was going to a sacred place.
quoted from Don Mario Mazzoleni's book, published by Leela Press of Faber, Virginia USA
Genesis 1: 29 Behold I have given you herbyielding seed.
To you it shall be for meat. (The fruitarian Garden of Eden)
Methusaleh.. the oldest man in the Bible, achieved 969
orbits of the sun.
Exodus: 26: 34 Thou Shalt Not Kill (not asterisked with
exceptions)
Jesus: Ye are whited sepulchres (Greek sarcophagi sarx flesh ..phagi eater)
Jesus threw the butchers out of the temple. Daniel was vegetarian
in the lions' den and therefore was
not harmed. Daniel was in jail 10 days and his
condition as a vegetarian was better than those who
were not.
Paul: If your flesheating offends your brother, forego it.
Jesus: Feed the hungry (450 times as many people per acre
can be fed tree products in comparison to slaughterhouse
products)
Many Catholics are praying that the Holy Father who takes such a strong stand
in preventing the violence of war and execution, will withdraw his
endorsement of the cruelty of lab research. Many Catholic churches have blessing of the animals ceremonies.

Abba in the name of Jesus thank You that You are now ending all violence to people, animals, and all beings on Your planet now and forever.

* Thank you Cohdra for telling us about St Nicholas

-S Shriver- Tweet