Christmas without cruelty
by Deborah Jones
From
Catholic Concern
for Animals
What a witness it
would be to the birth of the Prince of Peace if all Christians were to
desist from colluding in the slaughter of millions of fellow sentient
creatures - and replace the 'Christmas' turkey/goose/duck with a
perfectly delicious vegetarian alternative. It does not seem likely,
alas, for even such a small, yet significant, gesture on behalf of
animals - as Christians are still largely unaware of many of their own
traditions and teachings.
One major
tradition is based on the biblical account of creation, redemption and
the new creation. The first few chapters of Genesis relate how all
creation was loved into being by God who intended it to exist in perfect
love and harmony. As is well known, all the creatures, including people,
were given vegetation to eat, so that there was no killing in nature at
all. It was only when the sins of humanity (Adam and Eve) brought death
and disorder into the world that creation then experienced the suffering
involved in killing. Even after Noah, when people were given a second
chance, sin and violence were repeated time after time - to our own day.
But the Bible has
to be seen in its entirety. It has been put together as a collection of
writings with a beginning, a middle and an end. Creation and the Garden
of Eden mark the beginning; the coming of Christ on earth is the central
event; and finally, there is the revelation of a new creation, when
Christ will come again at the end of time. The natural world, so damaged
by sin and destruction, is to be wonderfully renewed and the original
harmony restored 'at the end of time'. This new creation, the kingdom of
God in its fullness, is to be one of justice, love and peace.
From the
brokenness of the beginning to the wonderful wholeness of the end is
achieved only by God acting in a remarkable way: by coming into the
world as a vulnerable baby. In the words of one of the Blessings of
Christmastide, 'When God became man, heaven joined to earth.' Christ's
life of love overcame the selfish sinfulness of our first parents, and
in his death and resurrection he conquered death and restored life.
Christ is like the hinge of a great door between the past and the
future, between heaven and earth, opening for creation the potential for
future wholeness.
A sign of that
kingdom to come is to live as if it were already here - in other words,
to live lives of justice, love and peace. To take part in the deliberate
killing of any part of creation, especially for the excuse of simply
'liking the taste' of a dead animal or bird, is a sign, not of the
Kingdom, but of this fallen, sinful world.
One principle
which most people, Christian or not, would support is that we should try
to ensure that the least harm is committed in the world, the least
violence inflicted and the least stress and pain suffered as possible.
So it is consistent to propose that, where plants can serve human need,
plants, not animals, should be destroyed for food.
The refusal to
kill and eat animals has a long Christian tradition. The early monastic
movement embraced total abstinence from meat. The monks modelled their
lifestyle on Jesus' forty day sojourn in the wilderness, which he spent
peaceably in the company of 'the wild beasts'. As Athanasius said of
Antony of Egypt: 'His food was bread and salt, and for drinking he took
only water. There is no reason even to speak of meat and wine, when
indeed such a thing was not found among the other zealous men.' St
Ambrose's homilies on Genesis included the following exhortation: 'We
ought to be content to live on simple herbs, on cheap vegetables and
fruits such as nature has presented to us and the generosity of God has
offered to us.' Such a modest life-style would also be good for the
environment and for enabling more of the world's poor to have enough to
eat. It would even benefit the health service, as the over-consumption
of meat, dairy and fatty products is one source of poor health in the
prosperous West.
In terms of
rights, I propose that the right to choose to eat animals simply for
pleasure, for taste or by convention should give way to the duty to
preserve the life of animals; and the right to produce animals for meat
should give way to the duty to provide sufficient healthy food for the
world's entire human population. For anyone who does claim the right to
kill animals for food, Dr Marie Hendrickx, a leading Vatican theologian,
asks:
"Does the right
to use animals for food imply the right to raise chickens in tiny
cages where they live in a space smaller than a notebook? Or calves in
compartments where they can never move about or see the light? Or to
keep sows pinned by iron rings in a feeding position to allow a series
of piglets to suck milk constantly and thus grow faster?"
The birth of the
Christ-child at Bethlehem inaugurated a whole new creation: the Kingdom
of God to be experienced in its fullness by the whole of creation. In
acts of loving-kindness, in gentleness, in beauty, in compassion, we can
glimpse facets of this new creation. Let us celebrate Christ's birth in
a manner consonant with the values of the Kingdom; let it not be the
cause of yet more suffering, more blood shed, more cruelty. Let this
year see a bloodless, happy Christmas for all God's creatures. We can
pray that this is so.
