Christian Vegetarian Association Blog - Lent: A Season of Reflection, Love and Compassion


	CVA BLOG

Lent: A Season of Reflection, Love and Compassion
February 25, 2013

Welcome to the weekly CVA blog! In it you will find famous quotes, news and commentaries.

What’s Wrong with Dairy?

Famous Quote: Mike Anderson, vegan advocate and writer

Father Mann Makes a Case for Vegetarianism

Bible verse: Job 12:7-10

Gestation Crates Must Go

This Week’s Video: Israel and Iran: A love story?

1. What’s Wrong with Dairy?

Many people assume that consuming dairy products is not nearly as bad as eating the flesh of animals. However, the reality is very different. Dairy cows and their calves are some of the most abused animals in agribusiness. This piece explains the unimaginable suffering these animals endure: brutal artificial insemination, beatings, stealing of their milk, separation of mother and baby shortly after birth, killing of male of calves, veal production, etc.

Please visit Torture and Infanticide: Why Dairy is Bad and share!
http://veganrabbit.com/the-issues/torture-and-infanticide-why-dairy-is-bad/

God’s cows and her babies live a hellish life so humans can enjoy the taste of dairy products. The way we treat these animals goes against Christ’s faith, which is centered on compassion, mercy and love. The sooner we acknowledge this, the more we participate in the healing and reconciliation in God’s Creation!

2. This Week’s Famous Quote

As far as eating is concerned, humans are the most stupid animals on the planet. We kill billions of wild animals to protect the animals that we eat. We are destroying our environment to feed to the animals we eat. We spend more time, money and resources fattening up the animals that we eat, than we do feeding humans who are dying of hunger. The greatest irony is that after all the expenses of raising these animals, we eat them; and they kill us slowly. And rather than recognize this madness, we torture and murder millions of other animals trying to find cures to diseases caused by eating animals in the first place.

~ Mike Anderson, vegan advocate and writer

3. Father Mann Makes a Case for Vegetarianism

The Tablet, the weekly paper for the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, published a series of 3 articles written by Fr. Frank Mann in which he makes a call for mercy and compassion, and encourages Christians to adopt a plant-based diet.

To read the 3 pieces please visit:

Abstaining from Meat Can Be Transforming http://thetablet.org/?p=20648

The Call to Mercy http://thetablet.org/?p=20890

and

What We Owe to Animals
http://thetablet.org/?tag=what-humans-owe-to-animals

Although for the most part the brutal treatment of God’s farmed animals is not in the radar of church leaders, it’s encouraging to learn that some spiritual leaders, such as Fr. Mann, recognize the paramount importance of treating animals with compassion and kindness, which ultimately leads to abstaining from hurting and killing them; thus, not eating them. Indeed, faith and choice of diet are intimately related.

4. This Week’s Bible Verse

(RSV) Job 12:7-10

But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

The essence of God, the breath of our Creator, is in each and every one of us. Every creature on Earth is connected by this web of infinite love and wisdom. Once we embrace this fact, it’s not possible to willingly and unnecessarily cause harm to any creature.

5. Gestation Crates Must Go

Nathan Runkle, founder and Executive Director of the animal advocacy group Mercy for Animals, explains why Walmart’s cheap cost of pork comes with a very high price: egregious acts of cruelty. Numerous undercover videos at pig factory farms have shown the systematic, standard cruelty inflicted on these animals. Aside from piglets being slammed headfirst into the ground, workers cutting off piglets' tails and testicles without painkillers, and animals suffering from bloody open wounds, one of the most abusive practices by the pig industry that Walmart still supports is cramming pigs into gestation crates where they can barely move, certainly not turn around or lie down comfortably, and never exercise any of their instincts and needs.

Please visit The High Cost of Walmart's Cheap Pork:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-runkle/the-high-cost-of-walmarts_b_2646805.html

Treating pigs without any compassion or mercy is certainly making a mockery of God’s love for them. Gestation crates have no place in a civilized society. Christians, stewards of God’s Creations, are called to expose victimization and to do our best to stop it. It’s clear that farmed animals are brutally victimized by the animal agriculture industry and that unless we take a stand and stop consuming their products, God’s animals will continue to suffer for simply taste and profit.

6. This Week’s Video

Although it isn't about vegetarianism, this TED Talk is a good reminder of the power of being positive, loving and hopeful.

Please visit Israel and Iran: A love story? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lp-NMaU0r8

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