My Experience After Five Years

Compassion for Animals as a Disciple of Christ: My Experience after Five Years

Being an outspoken vegan who advocates for compassion towards animals was not something I had imagined would cause so much friction in my life. During my philosophy studies as a Jesuit scholastic, a freshman undergrad student pointed out the inconsistency between my professed discipleship of Christ, the Prince of Peace, and my continued participation in violence towards animals through the consumption of animal-based food products. Over a few weeks, the scales fell from my eyes, and I began to see the world through a different lens. I was left to ponder many questions. Why had I not seen this before? Why do good people continue to participate in unnecessary violence towards sentient creatures? What is my role in all this? Could I personally abstain but remain silent, or do I owe animals a voice because they are voiceless?

I hope the lessons I have learned from my advocacy for animals can provide insights to those fighting for justice – for animals and for all the oppressed in our world. Personally abstaining from injustice is hard enough, especially when one lacks allies in one’s social network. Speaking up about injustices in the hopes of inviting change among friends and family is a fraught proposition. It can be alienating and demoralizing. For instance, many young people experience climate anxiety as they slowly lose hope in the possibility of humans reigning in carbon emissions. Activists despair and burnout, eventually becoming apathetic to injustices. Other times, activists have lost friends or been disinvited from family events over their moral stances. We need to learn to persevere in seeking justice while facing the realities of a fallen world.

Faith is the Foundation

The most important lesson thus far in my vegan journey is the power of, and my need for, prayer. The fight for justice originates from God and is directed towards God’s kingdom. Justice is ultimately about love, and God is love. I pray for trust in God’s power and goodness, reminding myself that God is still in charge. I desire a hope that transcends the results, or lack thereof, of my puny efforts. I ask for perseverance in my discipleship of Christ. My whole project of being vegan and promoting compassion for animals is a response to an invitation from God.

The Catholic tradition is replete with heroes who fought long, difficult battles for justice. One person who has inspired me lately is Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican from the 16th century. He fought against all odds for something he believed to be right. Even when no one else seemed to care, and when he had nothing to gain but all to lose, he campaigned against the brutal treatment of native Americans at the hands of Europeans. He gave up his extensive land holdings and slaves in the Caribbean and traveled back to Spain to petition the Crown to stop the abuses. He spent the last 50 years of his life fighting for justice, with very little to show for his efforts at his death. The Spanish government treated Las Casas' pleas with ambivalence, in part because indigenous enslavement was so profitable. Enslavement of billions of animals is likewise profitable to the producers and pleasurable to the consumers, drawing ambivalence and hostility towards those who question the cruel treatment of farm animals.

Our faith tradition reminds us that no prophet is welcome in his own place. But we must not seek riches, honor, and pride. Instead, we ought to seek poverty, insults, and humility for the sake of God’s kingdom. De las Casas probably knew that a radical stand was not about results, or what was practical or efficient. Living Jesus’ call to compassion in the present is not dictated by results or future gains. Prophetic lives are about resting our hopes in God. When things don’t make sense, we stand for goodness in the present, trusting that God will take care of goodness in the future.

Pope Leo wrote in his encyclical, Maginifica Humanitas, “The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization. For this reason, it is worthwhile pausing to reflect on some aspects of how we, each in our own way, can cooperate in building the civilization of love.” Despite the seeming hopelessness of the cause, we must trust that God will use our puny efforts in building His civilization of Love. And every act of love matters to that one animal whom we saved from cruelty.

Lived Experience in an Imperfect World

As with important moments in life, I did not know at the time how much my decision to abstain from meat would shape my life: faith, relationships, vocation, academics, and ministry. After that conversation with the student, I couldn't forget his pointed questioning that exposed my hypocrisy. I spent months reading up on philosophy, theology, the cognitive science of animals, human health, and practical ideas for living a vegan lifestyle. I concluded that continued meat consumption was indefensible in my life. Humans can live healthy and flourishing lives on plant-based diets. Any consumption of animal products is superfluous and causes unnecessary suffering in animals.

Living as a vegan is a complicated reality. I do not want veganism to define me. I am a child of God and a disciple of Christ. That is the core of my identity. But those are uncontested claims in my context. No militant atheists are testing my allegiance to those beliefs on a daily basis, or occasionally mocking me for being “self-righteous”. In contrast, abstaining from animal-based foods presents a clash of worldviews with society every day. 

What does one do when there is a clash between a desire for authenticity, a desire for comfort, and the need to be liked? Authenticity requires coherence between internal beliefs, spoken opinions, and lived reality. But comfort comes through taking the path of least resistance, by fitting in and being liked. I desire both authenticity and comfort. Unfortunately, with abstinence from meat in my context, I had to pick one. I chose authenticity, at least for now. Perhaps, I may become an omnivore again in the future if I run out of steam or come across new arguments that convince me that violence towards animals is acceptable. Or, in a wildly optimistic scenario, veganism may become so mainstream that abstaining from meat would be the comfortable option.

Even though I try to rely solely on God’s grace, it has not always been smooth sailing. Sometimes, I wish I had never thought about animal cruelty at all. My life would be a lot simpler. I would not have to deal with the rejection from my brother Jesuits when I cook for the community. I would be invited to more social events because such events, especially among men, usually involve going out to eat meat. I would be a fuss-free guest at parties and would not have to ask the host which dishes were vegan. But I know I would be unhappy if I ate meat after knowing about its origins in violence and cruelty. Personal integrity and moral coherence matter to me, and it is hard to switch them off.

Caring about animal welfare has also made me wrestle with what I perceive as incongruence in the lives of those around me. People with pets speak so lovingly about them, highlighting how their pets have made them better people. A friend tells me that her dog has helped her slow down and be present in the moment. She has learned to live for others because of her dog. It shows how much animals can mean to people. Even those who may not identify as animal lovers agree that unnecessary cruelty and violence towards animals is morally abhorrent. But then those same people also seem to be ok with participating in a system that causes so much pain and suffering to other animals. How can we care about the well-being of animals and also kill them unnecessarily? 

The incongruence in the lives of others bothers me not only because animals continue to get hurt and killed, but also because I desire to have other plant-based folks in my social circles. I wish my friends were vegan! My life would be so much better. Then I remind myself that I myself had participated in violence towards animals for many years. I cannot condemn others because I do not know their whole story, but I can invite them to expand their circle of compassion to include farm animals. I need to learn to love others despite disagreements: to be kind and patient, so that I can dialogue well.

However, when advocating for justice, one does need to find one’s tribe. I felt this acutely when steak was the main course at my birthday and farewell dinner at my Jesuit community. How could my housemates and brother Jeusits not know that steak was offensive to my sensibilities? I definitely did not hide my veganism or advocacy for animals during my years in the community. Yet, because they were not in my vegan tribe, I had to accept the alienation from my community. I took comfort from knowing that I have at least a few friends who are vegan, trying to be vegan, or at least accept and appreciate my concern for animal welfare. I know many vegans who feel very alone in their social circles. They have written to me asking me for prayers and advice. And that is all I can offer from a distance.

Speaking to people online also showed that my veganism could be a source of hope for some people. I had grown tired of veganism always having negative associations because it evokes guilt, discomfort, and annoyance in those around me. Receiving appreciation from other vegans and encouraging them in their journeys helped me see the positive side of advocacy for animals: mutual support and sense of community around a common cause.

Bringing Compassion for Animals into Academia 

As a student of theology and philosophy, veganism was a great question to bring to the table as I sought to apply my studies to my daily life and ministry. For instance, when we studied Christian ethics, I wondered how virtue theory applied to the food we eat? Virtue theory states that our daily actions shape our character. Continued participation in violence would turn a person into a violent character. When we discussed care for creation in ecological ethics, I asked how ethical thinking squared with the cruelty to creatures on factory farms or the outsized impact of animal farming on the natural environment. 

I used the lens of concern for animals to approach topics as diverse as Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to abstain from meat offered to idols (1 Corinthians 8) to the economic injustice of the negative externalities of animal agriculture. I examined the role of the Catholic priesthood in being a prophet who speaks on behalf of the voiceless, in this case animals, and I critiqued the absence of reference to non-human creation in Catholic liturgies. If we didn't pray for and with other creatures, did we love and care for them as God does? When discussing the concept of God's grace, I grappled with the absence of grace in our world whenever humans knowingly participated in a cruel enterprise. Is it a lack of God’s grace that precluded us from doing the right thing? As part of my research project in the Disputed Questions course, I had the good fortune of interviewing friends and family about factory farming. Asking folks directly about what they knew about the conditions of factory farming and our Christian duty towards animals helped confirm that there truly are no good arguments for supporting factory farming of animals. 

As Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a French conservationist, once said, “We only protect what we love, we only love what we understand, and we only understand what we are taught.” Graduate school taught me to continue learning about the topic because there are so many ways to approach any injustice, even something as egregious as factory farming. Besides, one needs to be willing to update one’s beliefs when presented with new arguments. Just as I have changed my mind on other issues, I have to be open to possibly doing so again on this issue as well. But for now, learning more about animals and their oppression has inspired me to love them and to fight for them.

Having the privilege of studying this topic, I now have the responsibility to teach others about it. I worry about coming across as preachy or self-righteous. I dislike making people uncomfortable because talking about this topic is a direct attack on most people’s lifestyles. There is no way around it. But then, silence is not an option when the voiceless are suffering. I try to find common ground with people of goodwill, and encourage them to extend their circle of compassion to include animals. For instance, Laudato Si – Pope Francis’ encyclical on care for creation – is widely popular among many Catholics. Using that common ground, I invite them to consider the sections that speak about compassion for animals. Most people already care about goodness and kindness. I only need to nudge them to take this innate goodness a step further.

In the end, love and kindness will prevail. That is our hope, that is our trust in an all-loving and all-powerful God. Love is more powerful than death, and kindness defeats violence. I hope I can say this with some confidence most days of my life as a disciple of Christ. And when I feel despair, I trust that God will grace me with hope.

Epilogue

I think it is worth sharing a section from my paper for a theology class:

“There are very few arguments for meat eating that work as well as the many arguments for abstaining from meat. Yet nothing changes. One may arrive at the point of action, having discerned what is at stake and deliberated over options for acting, and still not act. Thomas Aquinas identifies two defects that lead to such inaction: inconstancy and negligence. A person’s emotions – fear of condemnation or love of comfort – distract him from following through on his decision about doing the right thing. The second defect is insufficient love for the good itself. The first is a lack of virtue, the second is a lack of charity. Each person would need to examine whether one or both of these apply to their case. The defects not only impede action but distort reasoned reflection. During conversations about animal ethics, I have observed how the human will can overcome reason. Once a person realizes they would need to act if they conclude that animals experience cruelty in farming, they begin to attack the premises (animals don’t suffer) or insert new premises (plants feel pain too). Or they may even modify their ends (compassion for animals is unimportant to them) or evaluate less demanding actions more favorably (eat chicken instead of beef). When this happens, it is helpful to take a step back and identify whether their inaction is due to insufficient reason or insufficient charity. One would then need to proceed accordingly.”

• Essay by Daniel Mascarenhas, S.J. (May 2026)