Question about abstention

[NathanSoc]

I might be confusing "order" with some other term - I know that many Trappists are vegetarians, as were the original Benedictines, Franciscans, and Carmelites.

No, I'm sure you're right. I'm just wondering whether vegetarianism may itself or may have been regarded by itself as an act of penitence by these orders.

[PangeLinguaGloriosi]

I might be confusing "order" with some other term - I know that many Trappists are vegetarians, as were the original Benedictines, Franciscans, and Carmelites.

No, I'm sure you're right. I'm just wondering whether vegetarianism may itself or may have been regarded by itself as an act of penitence by these orders.

I'm not sure - unfortunately, most of the information available online about vegetarian religious in the Church is made available by PETA, so no sources are presented. (Disclaimer - I agree with PETA's central idea - the prevention of cruelty to animals, but I disagree with most of their methods)

[Aloysius]

I am quite certain without even looking it up that any form of vegetarianism practiced by the original Benedictines would have been purely penitential as well as practical.  I am unaware of any actual documentation which describes them as being vegetarian; but I could envision that they grew all their own food (so, as a practical matter, it was natural that they eat nothing but that which they grew, they probably did not start out with their own cattle) and practiced abstinence from meat as something penitential.

I very much disagree with any form of vegetarianism which is based upon the false notion that we should not, morally speaking, eat animals.  The only form of abstaining from meat acceptable in the Catholic Church is one which admits the natural order of creation by which animals naturally supply us with food but chooses to forego that good for the sake of penance.  Anyone with opinions that meat should not be eaten by a wide segment of the population is directly fulfilling the words of the Apostle Paul:

"They... require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." 1 Tim: 4

It is a biblical truth that God created meat to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and no the truth.  Anyone with any far-reaching moral pretense that no one should eat meat is in error.

But it is acceptable if it is a personal choice for their health (though I personally think it is a bad choice if done for health-reasons; it is clear from all the things you must do to make up for the protein in order to remain healthy that it is objectively unhealthy to not eat meat) or for their personal penance (makes much more sense, keeping with the traditional ideas of fasting in order to teach us to deny our carnal desires)

[NathanSoc]

When many orders were founded,  meat would have been  a rich man's food,  a sign of affluence and a luxury for the common man,  and therefore to eat meat, although not morally forbidden by the Church,  could nonetheless be interpreted as breaking one's vow of poverty. There could be a moral case for vegetarianism within monastic orders

[Aloysius]

yes, as penance, as you said: the vow of poverty.  not as an objective moral principal overall, though, such a thing would be contrary to scripture.

[Cyriacus]

Penance and simplicity are the overwhelming motivators of monastic vegetarianism, but Saint Columbanus in his very strict rule writes (translation by Oliver Davies in Celtic Spirituality):

The monks' food and drink should be poor and taken in the evening, in order to avoid satiety and inebriation, and so that they sustain life without harming it let them eat vegetables, beans, flour mixed with water, together with a small loaf of bread in case the stomach is burdened and the mind confused.

Although not amounting to moral advocacy of vegetarianism, Columbanus suggests that a monastic diet excluding flesh encourages the sustenance of life as opposed to its harm. This is especially reasonable when we consider that the monastic community in question was involved with the cultivation and processing of its own food; any meat on the refectory table would have been slaughtered by a monk using the implements and methods of the day.