Church’s meaty dilemma
The advent of technology that enables non-meat products to taste more like meat than ever poses a fresh ethical question that’s particularly relevant at this time of year – can Catholics, in good conscience, eat plantbased meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger during Lent?
The Catholic Church instructs members to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent, a season of penitence and renewal leading up to Easter.
The practice dates to the early days of the church, when meat was considered a luxury, and is meant to be an act of self-discipline.
Impossible Foods spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said some restaurants encouraged patrons to try the Impossible Burger during Lent, so the company expected a bump in orders at this time of year.
The Rev Marlon Mendieta of St Patrick Catholic Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina took an informal poll of his priest friends. ‘‘If it’s not meat, it’s not meat,’’ one responded, bringing sighs of relief from Catholic omnivores everywhere.
Ultimately, Mendieta said, the decision was a matter of personal conscience. Plant-based burgers were not meat, but eating them because they offered a technical exemption to the rule was missing the point – unless there was a medical reason, like an allergy to fish, which Catholics commonly substitute for meat during Lent.
The church generally cared more about whether eating a certain food was a sacrifice than about whether it was technically meat, said Michael Foley, a professor at Baylor University who studies early Christian writers.
Catholics are supposed to give to people in need whatever money they save by not buying meat during Lent. If a plant-based burger cost as much as or more than a burger made from meat, Foley said, the charitable part of the tradition was missing.
Fulltime vegetarian the Rev Christopher Steck, a theology professor at Georgetown University, said Catholics could justify eating plant-based burgers for reasons of sustainability. Pope Francis has appealed to all people to care for the environment.