Vegan Catholics, are they unicorns? I was an alter boy many, many years ago...

[genwah]

but I stopped a long time ago, and haven't really been paying attention. And another thread lead me to remember Vatican II, when eating meat on Fridays was suddenly okay. That got me to wondering about other changes, not in the Church but in society. There was no PETA when I was a kid, there were vegetarians, and Graham crackers and stuff, but no vegans that I recall.

Here's my point; as a Catholic (then) I believed in the miracle of Transubstantiation. (This is where, in Catholic Mass, the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Really.) So, if Catholics still believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, which as far as I know, has not received the "meat on Fridays" revocation, can a vegan be a devout Catholic?

P.S. This is really not snark, I'm not kidding, are there any vegan Catholics here on DU? No kidding, I get vegetarianism/vegan-ism on ethical grounds, not wanting animals to suffer and/or die on our behalf, but that only makes the Jesus-on-the-cross thing worse than a hamburger. Anybody?

[rug]

1. You should brush up on what Transubstantiation is.

Hint: You're confusing accidents with substance.

[TommyCelt]

2. What rug said...

Read up a bit on transubstantiation; you misunderstand the teaching. Wiki's always a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

The Catholic Church teaches that the substance or reality of the bread is changed into that of the body of Christ and the substance of the wine into that of his blood, while all that is accessible to the senses (the outward appearances - species remains unchanged. What remains unaltered is also referred to as the "accidents" of the bread and wine, but this term is not used in the official definition of the doctrine by the Council of Trent.The manner in which the change occurs, the Catholic Church teaches, is a mystery: "The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ."

Just as you're not chugging plasma/red and white cells when you take the chalice, you're not chomping on the muscle fibers, fat and cartilage of Jesus when you take the host. Catholics with celiac still have to be careful with the consecrated host, and alcoholic Catholics still have to be careful with the consecrated wine.

By the by, your post pretty much felt like snark, the PS notwithstanding.

[genwah]

4. Hey, I was a kid when I was lat Catholic. What set us apart was, in our smug way, saying

it wasn't just grape juice. I was taught to believe it was a miracle. Which is another way of saying "surpassing understanding."

And, I still don't understand it.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. It sounded like snark to me too

First, it's "altar boy", not "alter boy".

Second, your post reminds me very much of an incident on a now-defunct Catholic talkboard I used to belong to. A Seventh Day Adventist burst into our little group, denouncing Catholics as practicing "canibolism" (sic) for consuming the body and blood of Christ. (She also claimed that the Pope saw himself as Christ reincarnated, based on a single sentence, wrenched from any context, in an unsigned editorial in an 1895 edition of the diocesan newspaper of London, Ontario. The general consensus among the Catholics was that was not an authoritative statement of Catholic doctrine. She also condemned us to hell because we held the Sabbath on Sunday, not Saturday.)

I know a couple who are vegetarian, albeit not vegan, who are daily communicants.

[okasha]

5. Many monastic orders (monks and nuns)

are essentially vegetarian or vegan because of their vows of poverty.