Plant-based diets reduce harm, are moral

I attended the Chrism Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in St. Cloud last week. Bishop Patrick Neary, during his homily, referred to a statement by Pope Francis about priests “being shepherds with the smell of the sheep.”

The reference to priests should be read as referring not only to ordained priests but to the entire priesthood of believers. In other words: all the baptized people of God.

This image of smelling like sheep is typically interpreted in a pastoral manner as taking ministry to the margins, to those who are vulnerable, to those who are suffering. It connotes proximity and humility. It’s about “being with.”

Who are the sheep? In Christian contexts, sheep are often used as a metaphor for the followers of Christ, who is their shepherd.

The phrase smelling like sheep, however, can mean standing in solidarity, not only with humans, but with all the vulnerable within God’s interdependent web of creation — for example, forests, rivers and animals.

Nonhuman creatures suffer greatly, for example, at the hands of human practices like factory farming. The organization Food & Water Watch contends that there “are currently 1.7 billion animals living on U.S. factory farms,” which has almost doubled since 2002.

Factory farms, which are usually referred to as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), typically contain large numbers of animals in very compact areas.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in 2022, stated that there were 21,000 CAFOs in the United States.

CAFOs come in different sizes. A small CAFO could have less than 200 dairy cows, while another small CAFO could have 37,500 chickens.

Large CAFOs could have 55,000 turkeys or 125,000 laying hens.

Some laying hens are kept in battery cages, which provides about 67 square inches of room per bird.

Smaller than the size of an eight and a half x 11 sheet of paper (the equivalent of confining a six-foot human to a space the size of a bathtub).

Natural behaviors like dustbathing (removes excess oils and parasites and cleans the feathers) or wing flapping are impossible in such confined spaces.

Per capita meat consumption in the US is expected to hit 236.6 pounds in 2034. Broiler chickens, beef and pork are the main sources.

Pope Francis stated in his encyclical Laudato Si that every “act of cruelty towards any creatures is ‘contrary to human dignity.’” He was quoting 2418 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

What about adopting a plant-based diet or at least reducing the consumption of meat, dairy and eggs?

Oxford University published a study in 2023 that found vegan or plant-based diets “account for 75 percent less in greenhouse gas emissions than those who eat more than three and a half ounces of meat a day…and…also results in significantly less harm to land, water and biodiversity.”

Each one of us is called to be a steward of creation, in our own corner of the universe.

This means acting in ways that reduce harm and violence in the world. It means standing in solidarity with vulnerable nonhuman creatures and allowing ourselves to “smell like the sheep.”