Will Notre Dame Students Go Vegan for Lent?

PETA’s Christian Outreach Division Asks the Fighting Irish to Show Compassion for All God’s Creatures

For Immediate Release:
February 20, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

With Ash Wednesday just days away, PETA’s Christian outreach division, LAMBS (which stands for “Least Among My Brothers and Sisters” from Matthew 25:50), has placed an ad showing a fish next to the words “I’m ME, Not a Meal” online in the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper, The Observer—which also serves Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross colleges.

“Lent is an apt time to reflect on Scripture and our call to serve as stewards of all God’s creation,” says PETA Vice President Daniel Paden. “PETA’s ad urges everyone to save lives and curb climate change by leaving all animals—including fish—off their plates.”

Animals are not mentioned in Genesis 1:29, which states that God provides “every seed-bearing plant” and “every tree whose fruit contains seed” as food for humans. Fish feel pain and fear, just as all animals do—but although more fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined, they have virtually no legal protection from abuse. They slowly suffocate or are crushed to death when they’re dragged out of the oceans in huge nets, and the throats and abdomens of those who survive are cut open on the decks of fishing boats.

Vegan meals spare other animals suffering, too: In today’s meat and dairy industries, chickens’ throats are cut while they’re still conscious, piglets are castrated without painkillers, and mother cows are separated from their beloved babies shortly after birth. Vegans are also less prone to suffering from heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes than meat-eaters are—and they have smaller carbon footprints, too, as the meat industry is a major producer of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

LAMBS also posted the ad online in Boston College’s student newspaper as well as on the websites of The Christian Post, Christianity Today, and the National Catholic Reporter—and the group sent letters to the five cardinals who lead U.S. archdioceses, encouraging them to go vegan for Lent and to urge those they shepherd to do the same.

LAMBS and PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offer easy vegan meal plans for people who go vegan for Lent as well as a free vegan starter kit full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETALambs.com.