Response to Laudate Deum

Photo by David Dolenc on Unsplash

Dear Editor,

Those of us who had hoped for the Update to Laudato Si' - Laudato Deum - to at last bring animals to the forefront of discussions on the environmental crises were very disappointed. Animals got barely a mention, and animal agriculture not a whisper.

The story of mankind's exploitation and enslavement of animals goes back to the dawn of civilisation right up to this moment when we are looking at the end of civilisation as we know it.

For the food trade alone we kill about 80 billion wild and farmed animals every year. Plus, we kill about two trillion wild and farmed fish each year. (United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation). Our global war on animals has reduced the wild mammal population of the planet to such an extent that only 4% of existing mammals are wild, 96% being humans and their livestock.

A quick look at fashion reveals that over a billion animals are killed for leather every year, and about 100 million animals are bred and slaughtered in fur farms geared to supplying the fashion industry. For silk, billions possibly a trillion or more of silkworms are killed every year for the fashion trade, commonly boiled or baked alive.

It is estimated that around 200 million animals are killed in laboratories around the world each year.

Concerning entertainment, thousands of blood fiestas take place every year in Spain alone, many to celebrate feast days of the Virgin Mary and other saints. These celebrations are traditional rituals of torture involving many different kinds of animals.

These figures show only a part of the full picture. What happened to "Thou shalt not kill"?

The Pope could have mentioned some of this.

When we eat meat, wear leather, visit animal exhibitions, hunt, don't support cruelty-free products, we are causing suffering for our pleasure. The Pope could have focused on this suffering in a meaningful way, by asking us to aim for a vegan lifestyle.

Our animal-based civilisation has brought us to the edge of catastrophe. All of our environmental crises, not just Climate Change, are driven by animal agriculture - loss of biodiversity, pollution, antibiotic resistance, destruction of land/sea/air, global starvation, wasteful use of resources.

This needs to be spelt out by Pope Francis, to have any chance of spurring people to meaningful action.

Yours sincerely,

Virginia Bell, Laudato Si' Movement Animator
Milton Keynes