Blessed are the tempeh and tofu...
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By now, you've probably heard that Pope Benedict believes humanity "needs to rediscover those values which can serve as the solid basis for building a brighter future," and industrialized countries must start "reducing their energy consumption and improving its efficiency."
Never one to miss such an opportunity, Bruce Friedrich of PETA promptly urged the pontiff to go vegan and serve only animal free meals at the Vatican:
"On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 2 million members and supporters worldwide, we applaud your strong exhortations for environmental protection, and we urge you to consider the fact that the most effective action an individual can take to fight climate change is to go vegan (which means not consuming poultry, fish, meat, eggs or dairy products)."
WATCH VIDEO: The "Green Pope" calls for Urgent Action
This is not just wishful thinking. After all, back in 2002, when Pope Benedict XVI was still known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was asked the following question: "Are we allowed to make use of animals, and even to eat them?" His reply:
"That is a very serious question. At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God's creatures. Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."
That whole "relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible" thing can be useful when discussing a cruelty-free diet with the religious set. After all, the longest lived man in Bible, Methuselah, was a vegetarian and he lasted 969 years (give or take a decade).
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