Sunlight filters through the stone arches of a centuries-old monastery, where silent figures in white and black robes go about their daily labors. These are the Trappist monks, famous for their extreme devotion, their vow of silence, and their strictly meatless diet. Founded in 1093, the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance represents one of the most rigorous monastic traditions within Roman Catholic Christianity. For generations, these monks have lived on a diet free of animal flesh, yet a closer look at their history reveals a startling moral contradiction.
To understand this paradox, one must look to the ancient roots of the meatless diet. In ancient India, Jain and Buddhist traditions embraced vegetarianism as a direct extension of non-violence and compassion. Across the Mediterranean, the followers of Pythagoras eschewed meat out of a deep sense of kinship with all living things. To them, the kitchen was an altar of peace. The avoidance of meat was an ethical imperative.
The Trappist motivation was different. Their dietary restriction was rooted entirely in the practice of asceticism. Meat was forbidden as a form of self-denial, a deliberate hardship designed to subdue physical desires and humble the spirit. The welfare of the animal never entered the theological equation. Health and nutrition were similarly ignored. In the eyes of the official Church, animals were simply commodities created for human use.
This ideological divide became jarringly clear in the daily operations of the monastic economy. To sustain their secluded lifestyles, many Trappist monasteries turned to dairy farming, producing some of the world’s most celebrated cheeses. This required a constant cycle of bovine pregnancy and birth. Half of the offspring born to these dairy cows were male, and because male calves cannot produce milk, they were useless to a cheese-making operation.
Rather than sparing these young animals, the vegetarian monks sold them directly to the commercial meat market. These young males became the foundation of the veal industry, raised in confinement and slaughtered at just a few months of age. Monks who would never allow a forkful of meat to touch their lips made their living by feeding the slaughterhouses. It was a highly lucrative trade. Their abstinence existed in a moral vacuum, completely detached from any duty of care toward the creatures in their custody. It remains one of the most jarring contradictions in the history of religious life.
Bibliographic Information
- Title: Vegetarianism: A History
- Subtitle: None explicitly published on cover, though titled “Vegetarianism: A History” in standard cataloging
- Author: Jon Gregerson
- Publisher: Jain Publishing Company
- City of Publication: Fremont, California
- Publication Year: 1994 (Copyright © 1994 by Jon Gregerson)
- Edition: First Edition
- ISBN: 0-87573-030-2
- Historical Period Covered: Deep Prehistory / Mythological “Golden Age” to the Late 20th Century (c. 1993–1994)
- Main Subject Areas: History of vegetarianism, ethical philosophy, comparative religion, Eastern and Western religious philosophies (Pythagoreanism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, early Judeo-Christian theology, Hassidism), Renaissance Humanism, the Victorian and pre-Victorian British dietary reform movements, animal rights history, and contemporary global vegetarian practices.
[Ch. 8, p. 51]