ETHICAL-THEOLOGICAL QUESTION POSED
What if you were to host a dinner tonight and your guest was going to be a goddess or an angel? What if your guest was to be Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, or the Buddha? What would you serve him—or her?
Would you serve a filet of a rare animal species that was on the verge of extinction? Or pate de foie gras, made from a goose force fed corn with a funnel down her neck to the point where she was in constant immobilizing pain? Or veal parmesan, made from a calf taken bawling a few hours old from its mother, denied a childhood, reared in a veal crate, and fed an unnatural diet that made it wretchedly ill? Or the cutlet of some other animal that left its crowded cage only once?
Would the visiting goddess approve of what was on your menu? Would she decline to eat such foods? Would she leave the table? Would she stand up and say, “The cries of innocent animals come up to me, and I will not pretend I am not offended by your financing their suffering.”
Would you lose points with Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates for your cruel diet? I’m just joking.
Or am I?
