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World Animal Day
(Oct. 4, 2008)
Memorial Service for Animals Killed for Food
Sermon by Padre Domenico - Vegetarian Action 2008
While in many parts of the world churches celebrate World Animal Day by inviting family pets to take part in the service called the Blessing of the Animals, the victims of human exploitation are excluded from any sort of remembrance. They are denied attention in the same callous way they are denied the basic needs of life and indeed life itself.
These are the billion of animals that are raised in the most appalling conditions and killed to satisfy the human hunger for animal flesh. It is a killing of massive proportions, a true genocide perpetrated against the most innocent and defenceless creatures of God. Indeed there is something disturbingly sadistic in the manner we treat so-called food animals. They are raised in very unnatural ways, locked up in facilities that resemble concentration camps, and condemned to a life of misery and, ultimately, death for the only crime of not having been born human.
But how can we use the word “life” to describe a condition that, to start with, is brought about by disregarding the very act that causes gestation and the subsequent birth of a new being? The males of many animal species that are raised for food are subjected to sexual abuse and rape to have their semen collected. The semen is then used to artificially inseminate the females whenever and wherever humans decide, and are caused to be constantly pregnant to produce new flesh and body products. Thus animals of both sexes are denied the right to sexual union, that magic act that mirrors God’s creative process – the union between Spirit and Matter – and that is at the very base of the existence of the universe.
The fruits of this unnatural act are, in turn, subjected to their share of human-inflicted suffering to mould them into machines driven to achieve an ever increasing product output through an ever decreasing input of resources such as time, space, food and supervision. The newly born are taken away from their mothers as soon as possible and, as the mothers are denied the experience of motherhood, the offspring are denied the much needed parental care that the young of every species has the right to. Instead of maternal warmth and comfort these newly arrived visitors to earthly life are greeted with cold and painful experiences such as debeaking, teeth clipping, dehorning, tail docking, branding, tagging and castration. They are then relegated either in solitary confinement or in overcrowded conditions where vital needs like air, light, water, food and space are controlled and manipulated.
The miseries inflicted on these creatures are generally seen as the inevitable sacrifice of the animal kingdom necessary for the betterment of the human condition. But in reality nothing could be farther from the truth, for, indeed, neither the physical nor the moral identity of the human race is improved by choosing to feed on animal foods.
Physically we are constantly reaping the consequence of the inherent violence that animal food consumption involves in the form of the many diet-related diseases that are plaguing humanity. Can’t we see the correlation between heart disease and the heartlessness with which we treat so-called food animals? Can’t we see the correlation between bowel cancer and society’s gutlessness to seriously consider our relation with the animal world and the validity of a vegetarian diet? Can’t we see the correlation between breast, cervical and prostate cancer and our consumption of flesh, dairy products and eggs – the fruits of animal reproductive systems which we use and abuse to satisfy our perverted food habits?
To treat animals as food is also morally detrimental. Indeed, in the eyes of many of the animals we raise for food their experience of earthly life must appear as hell, and we humans must appear to them as devils of the worst kind. The lack of compassion and consideration that animal eating involves doesn’t infringe only on the dignity of non-humans, but above all infringes on our own dignity as beings endowed with the means for bringing heaven down to earth, yet choosing to practice evil and make this world an ugly place.
At last death comes to the animals destined for our tables but for many this doesn’t come as a swift deliverance from the horrors of human tyranny, rather as their way to Calvary with sufferings which may be considered even greater than flagellation, hand and feet nailing, and agony on a cross. Many of the animals killed for food arrive at their Golgotha after having been transported for long distances in overcrowded conditions, through asphyxiating heat or gelid cold, hungry and thirsty, with broken limbs and broken trust in the human race.
Raising animals for food is increasingly becoming economically unsustainable given the diminishing availability of the resources upon which it much depends: water, oil and land. Sadly, animals are the ones who are made to pay in order to keep the price of animal foods accessible to the masses – the killing machine geared to process as many animals as possible in the shortest possible time. This dictates a frantic pace which often doesn’t allow for so-called humane killing to be implemented. As many documented cases of animal cruelty in abattoirs report, the killing line at overtaxed plants never stops for animals that survive the electrocution bath or the stun gun.
I remember what Tony, a friend of mine who used to work at a poultry processing plant in Halifax Street, a short distance from here, used to tell me about the factory operations and Toulla, the Greek lady who was to keep an eye on the birds that missed the electrocution bath. She was in charge of cutting their throat to make sure they wouldn’t also miss the automatic throat cutter and end in the hot water tank used to loosen the feathers still alive.
But that was some time ago and in today’s more modern, fully automated plants, birds may be more unlucky. They may miss the electrocution bath, the throat cutter and indeed reach the scalding tank fully alive and conscious.
Modern slaughterhouses pride themselves of being able to turn a live cow into steak in only 25 minutes. There animals are killed at a fast pace and, by the time they reach the second-legger (a job consisting in cutting hocks off carcasses as they whirl past at a rate of more than 300 an hour), they are supposed to be dead. But too often that’s not the case – they reach that station still alive and conscious. Some survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper and the hide puller. In the words of an abattoir worker: “They die piece by piece”.
Some 56 billion animals are reported to be killed each year for food worldwide, a figure that, staggering as it may sound, may be considered conservative given that, by necessity, it doesn’t include fish (whether farmed or wild caught), unreported and backyard killings, animals that are killed in the wild, and animals that die before reaching slaughter.
All this killing, what for? In the words of writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy: “A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
To live on a vegetarian diet is possible, as testified by our very presence here today. To live otherwise can indeed be called immoral, and though many may point out that the term ‘moral’ is to a large extent subjective, the Scriptures upon which our society’s judiciary system rests are very clear: For they don’t command “Thou shalt not murder”, rather “Thou shalt not kill”. Taken in its pure form, unadulterated by human interpretation designed to condone perverted actions, the injunction “Thou shalt not kill” is evidently meant to include all creatures, human beings as well as animals.
Let’s observe a minute’s silence to commemorate, this World Animal Day, those billions of creatures who society wants to forget.
From The Gospel of the Holy Twelve:
“Not by shedding innocent blood, but by living a righteous life shall ye find the peace of God……Blessed are they who keep this law; for God is manifested in all creatures. All creatures live in God, and God is hid in them….
“The fruit of the trees and the seeds and of the herbs alone do I partake, and these are changed by the spirit into my flesh and blood. Of these alone and their like shall ye eat who believe in me and are my disciples; for of these, in the spirit, come life and health and healing unto man….”
From The Gospel of Peace of Jesus Christ by the Disciple John
“And the flesh of slain beasts in his own body will become his own tomb. For I tell you truly, he who kills, kills himself, and whoso eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats the body of death.”
From the Sermon on the Mount in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve:
“Blessed are they that mourn because of all the evil that worketh against the innocent creatures of God.”
Thank you for coming
From: Rod Remelin: rod@rodremelin.com