BRUCE FRIEDRICH on The Power Hour
Jesuit Priests, Catholics, Mormons. Hindoos & PETA
Mon Aug 23, 2004 10:55
67.14.222.201

THE POWER HOUR


AUGUST 23 - AUGUST 27, 2004

MONDAY - AUGUST 23: AMERICAN CANDIDATES:
The fearless BRUCE FRIEDRICH, Director of Vegan Campaigns and People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), speaks out on political issues worthy of national acknowledgement.
http://www.PETA.org  and http://www.GoVeg.com 

http://www.thepowerhour.com/

Vegetarians Say Be Christlike, Don't Eat Meat
Saturday, November 24, 2001


BY MARTA MURVOSH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Summer Bammes remembers her conversion to a meat-free life: She was finishing an Egg McMuffin and debating animal rights in a college political science course.
Bammes cut her next two classes to surf the Web site of People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), based in Norfolk, Va., which opposes using animals for food, clothing and scientific experimentation.
"I walked home from school that day, totally committed to being a vegan," said Bammes of her epiphany a year ago.
Bammes, a Roman Catholic, found a parallel between PETA's message and that of Jesus' teaching to live a life of nonviolence.
"Just because it's not on the magic list of sins doesn't make it right to do," Bammes said.
The 22-year-old Salt Lake City woman is one of almost 2 million American vegetarians, according to surveys conducted by the Vegetarian Resource Group. Vegans like Bammes give up meat and avoid all animal products, including leather, eggs, milk and honey
No one has tracked how many American vegetarians don't eat meat for religious reasons though interest in linking the philosophy with religious motivation seems to be growing. Just last year, the Christian Vegetarian Association was formed (www.ChristianVeg.com), and coming out this year is a book titled Good Eating, by CVA board member Stephen H. Webb, a professor of religion at Wabash College. Also just released this year is a new edition of Judaism and Vegetarians by Richard Schwartz (see www.JewishVeg.com).
While some religious sects in Hinduism and Buddhism have proscriptions against eating meat, most Christian religions allow followers to make that choice themselves.
That leaves Christian vegans like Bammes looking deeper at their churches' doctrines and concluding that God wants them to live merciful and compassionate lives by not killing animals -- something PETA is tapping into with a new 18-page pamphlet.
Titled Christianity and Vegetarianism, it outlines spiritual, ecological and social reasons to be vegan.
John Dear, a Jesuit priest and author of the pamphlet, argues that people who support killing animals and fish for food aren't living up to the compassionate or merciful qualities that Christians are asked to embrace.
"The question we Christians have to ask ourselves is how can we become more Christlike and more faithful to the nonviolent Jesus?" writes Dear, who works in Harlem, N.Y. "We need to understand that if we're eating meat, we are paying people to be cruel to animals."
Dear, a peace activist, was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet to become a vegetarian in 1982.
In the past, PETA has aligned itself with Jewish and Islamic vegetarians.
"PETA's perspective of what it means to be human is to make compassionate choices, rather than cruel choices . . . that add to the bloodshed and suffering in the world," said Bruce Friedrich, PETA campaign coordinator.
During the Catholic church's 2,000-year history, various orders approached meat eating in different ways. For instance, during the Middle Ages, the monastic order of St. Benedict believed meat should be reserved for the aged and sick.
Provo resident Jim Catano, a Mormon and PETA member, looked to his own faith's teachings and found ample reasons to become vegan in the writings of past leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Mormon health code, known as the Word of Wisdom, says meat should be used sparingly and in times of winter and famine.
"It's a question of degree. I think you can be a perfectly good Christian and not be a vegetarian, but to be the best Christian you need to be a vegetarian," said the 50-year-old Catano, who stopped eating meat nine years ago. "It's tempered by understanding that only God can be the judge here."
While the PETA pamphlet was written by a member of the Catholic clergy, the pamphlet doesn't represent the Catholic church.
The church is neutral on eating meat beyond its rule to skip it on Fridays and on certain holy days, said Dan John, Utah diocesan director of religious education. The church's catechism allows the use of animals for food, clothing and, within reasonable limits, scientific and medical purposes.
"I'm really concerned about a book like this because there are going to be people who see this and say 'If I'm a vegetarian, I'm a better person,' " John said. "I don't remember 'Blessed are all the salad eaters.' "
mmurvosh@sltrib.com 

http://www.christianveg.com/saltlake.htm


Philip Berrigan, 1923-2002

B Y S T E P H E N D E A R

On Dec. 7, 1993, longtime peace activist Philip Berrigan, John Dear (my brother), Bruce Friedrich and Lynn Fredriksson risked 20 years' imprisonment (not to mention getting shot) by entering Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro and hammering on and pouring blood on two F-15E war planes. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle declared them "a danger to the community" and gave them prison sentences ranging from eight to 15 months.
Local supporters and unindicted co-conspirators of that "Plowshares" action continue to feel the deep impact of that single act upon their lives. For Philip Berrigan, who died Friday of cancer on the eve of the ninth anniversary of the action, it was just one among more than 100 acts of nonviolent civil disobedience that led him to serve 11 years in prison over the course of his 79 years.

A self-described "killing machine" as an infantry second lieutenant during some of the heaviest fighting in World War II, Berrigan later worked as an inner-city priest and civil rights activist. In 1965, Stokely Carmichael called him "one of the rare white people who really knows what is going on." Two years later, Berrigan and others poured blood on Baltimore draft files, and soon thereafter he and his Jesuit priest brother, Daniel Berrigan, and seven others used homemade napalm to burn 600 more draft files in Catonsville, Md., inspiring a generation of activists.

On rare occasions, honest judges paid homage to Philip Berrigan. "I know you are a moral giant, the conscience of a generation... Set that man free," declared a federal judge in the 1980s.

Grounded in the Jonah House community he founded with his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, among the poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore, Berrigan called people of conscience to "turn away from the violence in our lives and take responsibility for the violence of the state." Though known for his courage and steadfastness, he also was unparalleled in his humility. Once, I watched in horror as Philadelphia police officers threw Phil's body against a cinder block wall. His reply was a gentle, "Hey fellas, it's all right. Nothing personal."

I was 18 when I first attended a Jonah House-organized "faith and resistance retreat" in Washington, D.C., 20 years ago, a kind of "retreat" where more blood is likely to be poured on the Pentagon than coffee into mugs. (There's nothing like a little civil disobedience to start your day.) Though through the years I have often been little more than a bystander at such actions, I was transformed by experiences Philip, Elizabeth, and their community have led. On those occasions when I did participate in civil disobedience, I was turned inside out--a spiritual enema, Daniel Berrigan calls getting arrested. Sharing in experiences such as having Pentagon soldiers and workers step over me and on my hands while I was blocking the entrance with others gave me courage and strength I did not know I had.

Like one of his friends said, we know from Phil the power in us. He could, another friend said, see the saint that God originally intended each of us to be. "It was an extraordinary grace."

At his brother's funeral on Monday, Daniel Berrigan said, "From 1967 to the day of his death, Philip learned patience--a harsh, grating, unattractive, so-called virtue. He learned patience through bolts and bars, through stopped clocks, and time served at the icy hands of judges and guards and wardens. He learned through the warmaking state and the complicit church, through 35 years of American war and scarcely a week of genuine peace. Patience was an iron yoke placed on his shoulders."

"He showed us all what it meant to be free," said his daughter, Kate Berrigan.

As more than 400 admirers left his wake they started singing a musical staple of Philip Berrigan's life that summarizes his prophetic message for us:

And everyone beneath their vine and fig tree
Shall live in peace and unafraid
And into plowshares turn their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2002-12-11/porch.html

PETA Drops 'Jesus Was a Vegetarian' Campaign
Group still objects to fact that 9 billion animals are killed each year, "most eaten by Christians"

WASHINGTON, July 20 (RNS)-- Jesus may have been a vegetarian, but the Priests of the Sacred Heart have told an animal rights group to find another picture of him for their campaign to promote the ethical -- and biblical -- benefits of vegetarianism.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has pulled its popular "Jesus Was a Vegetarian" ad campaign after the 122-year-old religious order claimed ownership of the image of Jesus the animal rights group was using in its materials.
PETA, known for its outlandish efforts to promote animal rights, agreed to pull the campaign and is now looking for a "new Jesus to star in its ads."

The campaigns featured a devotional image of Jesus with a lemon slice halo around his head. The priests, who number about 130 in the United States, said they own the copyright to the image and want to keep it for devotional use.

"The image of the Sacred Heart has been tied to the Priests of the Sacred Heart for many years, and for those who have a devotion to the Sacred Heart, we would like to have it kept for use of the priests," said Mary Gorski, a spokeswoman for the order.

Gorski said the issue went beyond the "nitty gritty" aspects of copyright law, but declined to say whether PETA had cheapened the image by using Jesus to promote vegetarianism. "That's not our issue," she said.

PETA, in a statement, said some scholars believe Jesus was a member of a religious sect of vegetarians who rejected animal sacrifice. PETA said 9 billion animals are killed each year, "most eaten by Christians."

Bruce Friedrich, PETA's Vegetarian Campaign coordinator, said his organization will be back with new ads soon. "This campaign has been perhaps our most successful ever," Friedrich said. "We're simply asking that people extend compassion to all God's creatures by becoming vegetarians."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/34/story_3433_1.html

PETA's burger billboard rejected

CP 2004-08-22 05:29:54

ST. JOHN'S, NFLD. -- An animal-rights group says a Newfoundland advertising firm has refused to put up a billboard that equates eating hamburgers with child abuse. A billboard proposed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals featured a chubby faced child about to eat a hamburger and carried the tagline: Feeding kids meat is child abuse.

PETA decided to erect the billboard in St. John's after a Memorial University study reported alarming levels of obesity in Newfoundland preschoolers.

The animal-rights group was told through its booking agent that it was "not going to be able to place this board -- feel free to submit something different," PETA campaign co-ordinator Matt Rice said from Norfolk, Va.

PETA officials tried by phone and e-mail to find out a reason for the decision, but didn't receive a response, Rice said.

E.C. Boone handles billboard placements in St. John's for booking agencies.

Company president David Boone could not be reached for comment.

This is the first time PETA has attempted to place the billboard in question anywhere in Canada. However, it has already been accepted -- and rejected -- in different communities in the United States.

The billboard was turned down in Jefferson City, Mo., Raleigh, N.C., and Seattle.

It was given the OK in Indianapolis, Cleveland, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Rice said PETA will now attempt to erect the billboard in other Canadian cities to spread the group's message linking meat consumption and health problems.

The billboard rejected in St. John's is one of several PETA efforts that have attracted attention this week.

A billboard showing a dog with a fish hook impaled in its lip, reading, "If you wouldn't do this to a dog, why do it to a fish?" was pulled this week from Galveston, Tex., when the advertising firm received complaints.
Copyright © The London Free Press 2001,2002,2003

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/08/22/596716.html

Supposed book by Jesus pro-vegetarian — JJD, Mon Aug 23 17:49
Dick Gregory — The Power Hour Guest, Mon Aug 23 11:49
Vatican Assassins — Wounded In The House Of My Friends, Mon Aug 23 11:36
• RE: Vatican Assassins — James Dierbeck, Mon Aug 23 16:30