In the November issue, Francis X. Clooney, S.J., shared his experience of being a vegetarian. “Five decades of vegetarian diet has changed me, for the better, I think: simpler, more natural, more connected to the smaller and larger life forms around me,” he wrote. “For us Americans, it seems clearer and clearer: What most of us already have is more than enough.” Father Clooney’s reflection drew a number of thoughtful, appreciative comments.
Tip of the hat to you for being vegetarian for so long. I give up meat every Lent and it’s a ride on the struggle bus (and the chicken tendies I had after Easter were the best chicken tendies). Maybe one day I’ll have your strength. In the meantime, feel free to drop a recipe or two. I’ve been thinking about implementing no-meat Fridays.
Gwen Murtha
As a younger Catholic scholar, this very topic is forefront for me: how being vegetarian could make us all better Catholics and better people. (I have been vegetarian since my second year at Gonzaga University in 2015 and am now writing a dissertation on vegetarianism in Catholicism.)
I opted into my own vegetarianism for similar reasons that you described, though it was reading Martin Buber’s I and Thou that really shifted and solidified a vision of reality that had been growing in my mind (and heart); like you, however, I began early on to make exceptions for similar family and social gatherings.
I also liked this question from you: “Might vegetarianism gain a kind of liturgical power in a global church seeking to recalibrate its natural and cultural frames worldwide?” That is an important point: that we see the sacramental, dare I say eucharistic elements in our daily meals where we can say, alongside Jesus, that we can reject what our culture does due to the hardness of hearts because “from the beginning it has not been this way” (Mt 19:8).
Robert McDonald
I stopped eating all meat in 1990 for two reasons: the cruel ways in which animals are harvested for food, especially on the factory farms; and the impact that it has on the environment. A book by John Robbins, Diet for a New America, was my wake-up call. The horrendous conditions that chickens, pigs and especially young cows raised for veal are subjected to is a violence. The effects of raising huge numbers of cattle on the environment is a violence to the earth.
While I don’t try to convince people that they should be vegetarian, I strongly suggest that you know where your food comes from and how it was raised or, in the case of fruits and vegetables, how they were grown. I don’t believe that plants are sentient beings, but for your own health and the health of the planet, go organic as much as you can.
These things were not issues in Jesus’ day. They didn’t have factory farms or chemical fertilizers, and the very health of the earth was not in peril.
Roseann Lord
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and theology of food. Sometimes we approach vegetarianism solely as an ecological value. Likewise, we Americans tend to be skeptical about fasting as a moral and spiritual practice. You have gently, cogently, taken us beyond these limits to a deeper, freer view.
Ellen Wilfong-Grush
One can ask: “What did Jesus do?” He was a fish eater and as resurrected served fish to his Apostles on the shore of Lake Galilee. At the Last Supper, he and the Apostles shared in eating the paschal lamb as observant Jews.
Planet Earth will eventually demand we drastically reduce consumption of red meat. I eat plant-based burgers, but I’m obligated to pay more than one-third the price of cheap beef. At age 84, my spirituality is totally unrelated to my eating habits. Lord have mercy on me.
Baxter Survil
I enjoyed this autobiographical essay, and appreciate your thinking. I am trying, with my family, to become more like you in this regard.
Chad Ronnander
