In Corinth, meat in marketplaces often came from sacrifices to gods — and Saint Paul thus warned it carried a demonic character. Daniel Mascarenhas, SJ asks if our modern food system carries its own spiritual dangers.
Posts in Creation
The Reality of Cheap Chicken and the Overlooked Misery of our Animals
Many people eat chicken without knowing the harrowing realities of factory farms. Daniel questions whether Christians, in light of the Beatitude to show mercy, can continue to eat factory-sourced meat.
Learning Compassion from Children
Why do we expect a young girl to cry over a pet goat she must give up for slaughter but not over the animals we eat on a daily basis? Compassion for all God’s creation should motivate us to consider more deeply the ways we relate to all animals, not only some of them.
What Will Motivate Us to Care for Creation?
We need to understand why care for creation matters to us because truths about environmental degradation have no power over us if they do not relate to us.
Praying with the Pope: Caring for the Mental Health of Farm Workers
As the Church prays this November for those struggling with mental health, Daniel Mascarenhas, SJ draws attention to an often unseen group: slaughterhouse workers. In this reflection, he links compassion for animals with care for the human souls bearing the trauma of the meat industry.
This Christmas, Let’s End the Violence On Our Dinner Plates.
The idea of billions of sentient creatures slaughtered to satisfy our gastronomic wants around the holidays should give us pause. There are no good reasons for eating animal products as part of holiday traditions.
Consuming Creation: The Ecological Toll of Animal Agriculture
The damage inflicted by animal agriculture is often ignored, but its impact on God’s creation is undeniable. Daniel Mascarenhas, SJ, argues that Christians cannot settle for an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to the ecological crisis.
Leisure is meant to cultivate wonder, not make us more productive.
Our contemporary culture seems to suggest that free time should be spent in mindless entertainment or in rest for the purpose of being more productive later. However, leisure can put us deeper in touch with creation and our Creator when set aside for contemplative wonder.
California Is in a Drought. Taking Shorter Showers Is Not the Solution.
The California drought is an opportunity to examine how meat-heavy diets cause a strain to our water supply.
Integral Ecology Lessons from Chiapas’s Tzeltal people
Do you know what ‘integral ecology’ means? Pope Francis talks about its importance in his landmark encyclical “Laudato Si,” written in 2015. Learn how an indigenous community is living out a vision of integral ecology to uphold not only their culture but creation as well.