Animals: Tradition - Philosophy - Religion Article used with permission from All-Creatures.org

Virginia Bell shares a letter that was sent to Pope Leo XIV and signed by many figures in the Catholic animal rights movement. The letter provides numerous reasons why the new Pope should encourage all Catholics who are able to adopt a vegan lifestyle and extend Christian love and compassion to all species.

Letter to Pope Leo XIV from Catholics Calling for a Just Treatment of Animals
From Virginia Bell
August 2025

Images from Canva

THE FOLLOWING LETTER WAS SENT TO POPE LEO XIV

4th August 2025

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City

Dear Pope Leo,

We are Catholics who work to promote the concept of respect for all God’s creatures.

We give thanks for your election as Bishop of Rome, and hope that you will be Pope for many years to come.

We write to ask you to raise the status of animals by calling for all Catholics who are able, which will be many millions, to embrace a vegan lifestyle as far as possible. And we ask you to earnestly urge our bishops worldwide to encourage it in their dioceses.

Being vegan has so many advantages.

It would mean saving trillions of animals every year from dreadful suffering.

Throughout the world, we kill more than 80 billion wild and farmed animals every year for the food industry. Plus, we kill about 2 trillion wild and farmed fish each year. Each of these lives has suffered terror and agony.

We attack the Earth’s life forms on many fronts – blood sports, vivisection, agriculture, fashion, entertainment, the pet trade; all of which involve enslavement, exploitation and extreme cruelty.

There are estimated to be around 10,000 - 20,000 blood fiestas every year in Spain alone, many to celebrate feast days of the Virgin Mary and other saints. These celebrations are traditional rituals of torture involving many different kinds of animals.

It would mean we could feed the world.

Animal based agriculture is causing world hunger. We could feed the world right now with the grains we feed to animals.

Plus, up to 90% of the calories and proteins that we feed to the animals are lost in the animals growing. Feeding people directly would eliminate this tremendous waste.

Ending animal agriculture would make available enough land to feed the world and to have land left over to rewild, thus ensuring a planet fit to live in for future generations.

It would mean doing the one thing above all others that is needed to save the planet.

Our war on animals has reduced the wild mammal population of the planet to such an extent that only 4% of existing mammals are wild, with 96% being humans and their livestock.

Fishing trawlers are a weapon of mass destruction, leaving our oceans under serious threat of destruction.

Who can count the trillions of invertebrates which pesticides have destroyed, leaving the planet with a dire loss of insect life?

Loss of insects and destruction of oceans both pose a threat to all life on earth.
As does the deforestation of the planet, mainly for animal agriculture.

A University of Oxford research Report published in 'Science' by Poore & Nemecek on 1-6-2018 concluded: “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.”

It would mean a healthier diet for people.

Meat, milk, butter and cheese are linked to obesity, diabetes, strokes, heart disease and cancers. They are low in fibre, high in saturated fats, contain hormones, and meat, cheese and butter are high in salt. Milk leaches calcium from the bones and increases fractures.

Eggs are also linked to diabetes, strokes, heart disease and cancers.

Fish is highly polluted and linked to malignant melanoma cancer. Along with meat and dairy, fish is our main source of exposure to industrial pollutants.

And it would mean extending Christian love and compassion to all, not just to our own species.

We ask you to consider the overwhelming benefits of a vegan lifestyle, and to earnestly urge our bishops worldwide to encourage it in their dioceses.

Your Servants in Christ,

Virginia Bell, Laudato Si’ Animator UK, founder of Catholic Action for Animals

Fr. Donatello Iocco, Toronto, Canada

Fr Terry Martin, Diocese of Arundel & Brighton UK

Daniel Mascarenhas S.J.

JudyAnn Masters, LS Animator UK

Suzanne McAllister PhD, co-founder of Post Animal Use World Project

Sarah McFarlane, MA PETA LAMBS

Linda M Morris, LS Animator UK

Tammy Nicholson, OFS & Executive Director of All-Creatures.org

Barbara Niedźwiedzka PhD, Christians for Animals – Poland

Janet Parsons MBE, LS Animator UK

Mike Parsons, LS Animator UK

Dr. Susan Porter, LS Animator UK

Derek Reeve, Retired UK Catholic Priest

Estela Torres, FRA (Fraternity for Respect for Animals)

A J Woodhouse, Laudato Si’ Animator UK

PHOTOS

St Francis of Assisi thought that being vegan was just the beginning of our duty to animals; he urged us to go further: “Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it… If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

QUOTES

“God gave life to animals out of love. He cares for them; they accompany our life on Earth and wait with us for the End of time. ‘Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection...Each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God's infinite wisdom and goodness. Man must therefore respect the particular goodness of every creature’ (CCC339).”

Barbara Niedźwiedzka PhD

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“For me it’s part of loving God and loving my neighbor as myself.”

Fr. Donatello Iocco

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“If Catholics would embrace, or at least endorse, a vegan diet as much as possible it would be a healthier choice for us and the planet. It might also promote a more spiritually balanced lifestyle with a more accurate vision of our place and responsibility in creation.”

JudyAnn Masters

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“Your Holiness, we are overjoyed to see you continue Pope Francis’ legacy of caring for society's most marginalized members. We ask that you encourage the faithful to extend this great love to our animal kin, who suffer greatly at the hands of those God called to be their caretakers. If every one of the billion Catholics across the globe were to take their God-given role as stewards seriously, the world would be a vastly better place.”

Sarah McFarlane MA

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“For me, compassion for all God's creatures is central to my Faith.”

Janet Parsons MBE

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“I'd like to think that if Jesus was alive today, he'd be vegan.”

Suzanne McAllister PhD

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“Ethical veganism is not a fringe ideal; it is the natural fulfillment of our highest spiritual callings: mercy, justice, peace, and love for all God’s creation.”

Tams Nicholson OFS

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: August 12, 2025
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