WHAT WOULD THE POPE EAT?
I’ll be watching to see whether Francis practices what he preaches
In June, Pope Francis released his encyclical: On Care for Our Common Home. In this powerhouse document of both prophetic condemnation of current lifestyles and hope for the possibility of transformation, the pope calls on the faithful to change our lives in ways that will address the interrelated problems of climate change, global poverty and cruelty to animals.
When the Holy Father comes to the USA next week, I’ll be following reports to see what he has been eating — because for people who care about the climate, the poor or animals, the best diet by far is one that’s meat-free. Let’s take this step by step. First, Francis declares that “climate change ... represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.” He says, “Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming.”
EATING MEAT For the meat industry, animals must be fed a minimum of nine calories in feed grains for each calorie that the animal turns into meat. Because of that inefficiency, about 18% of climate change is attributable to animal agriculture, according to United Nations scientists, which is about 40% more than is caused by all planes, trains, trucks and cars combined.
Environmental scientists in Europe broke down our carbon footprint by meal, and they found that the most efficient meat creates 52 grams of greenhouse gases per calorie, which is 25 times more than legumes, 10 times more than wheat and seven times more than soy.
Second, the pope calls on us “to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” declaring that concern for the poor is “an ethical imperative essential for effectively attaining the common good.” It’s hard to imagine something that is worse for the poor than animal consumption. In a paper published in the prestigious magazine Environment, two scientists connected the dots related to the inefficiency of meat production and the effect on global poverty.
They found that growing crops to feed them to animals creates competition for land, water and food between farm animals and the global poor. They also found that small-scale farmers in the developing world “are expelled from their land, which is given to a large soy plantation to grow large amounts of animal feed to export to industrialized countries.” The authors conclude that “shifting diets toward more vegetarian and vegan meals (coupled with reducing the 20%–25% of food waste in the whole food chain) should rank as one of the leading focal themes for sustainability policy.”
CREATURES OF THIS WORLD Finally, the area of the encyclical that has gotten the least attention is Francis’ call for compassion toward animals.
In a few examples, from among dozens, the pope declares that “other living beings have a value of their own in God’s eyes,” and that “each must be cherished with love and respect.”
He vigorously denounces cruelty, stating that “it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly,” and that “the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures.”
To focus on the link between concern for the poor and concern for animals, Francis explains that Mary, the mother of Jesus, “grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power.” When the pope combines concern for animals and the poor, and invokes Mary in doing so, you know he’s serious. But animals on modern farms are confined in spaces that do not allow them even to turn around. They are bred and drugged to grow so quickly that many cannot even walk.
Just one example: Animal scientists from the University of Arkansas explain that were a human child to grow as quickly as a modern chicken, she would weigh 660 pounds by the time she was two months old. In modern agriculture, cruelty is the norm, not the exception.
Perhaps most remarkable is Francis’ call for personal action to address the tripartite evils of climate change, poverty and cruelty to animals. Specifically, Francis wants us “to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.”
Nothing we do on a daily basis has more of an adverse impact on climate change, the global poor or animals than our decision of whether to eat meat.
So when the pope comes to America, I’ll be watching what he eats — to see whether he practices what he preaches.