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Summary
- Killing animals is not in itself a sin. After the flood God gave Noah “every moving thing that liveth” as food (Genesis 9:3), and Paul says “every creature of God is good” (1 Timothy 4:4).
- “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13) uses the Hebrew ratsach, which means to kill a human being, especially to murder, and so the Jewish Publication Society’s 1917 translation reads “Thou shalt not murder.”
- Cruelty is a sin: “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel” (Proverbs 12:10), and the law of Moses protected working oxen, donkeys and nesting birds.
- The Catholic Catechism allows using animals “for food and clothing” and calls it “contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly” (2417–2418).
- The idea that kindness to animals keeps us from cruelty to each other comes from Thomas Aquinas. Augustine, writing against the Manichaeans, called their refusal to kill animals “mere superstition.”
- Killing insects, mice and other pests is not a sin, and ending a suffering pet’s life is not the needless suffering the Catechism condemns.
- Orthodox Christians give up meat as a fasting discipline, with dispensations, and they eat it outside the fasts.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (public domain), via BibleGateway: Genesis 1:26, 1:27, 1:29; 8:20; 9:3, 9:4, 9:6; 27:3; Exodus 20:13; 23:5; 23:12; Leviticus 17:13; Numbers 22:32; Deuteronomy 4:42; 22:6–7; 25:4; 1 Samuel 17:34–35; Proverbs 12:10; Jonah 4:11; Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6; 14:5; 24:42–43; Acts 10:13–15; 1 Timothy 4:3–4; Hebrews 10:12; 1 John 1:9. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+12%3A10&version=KJV
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., paragraphs 2415–2418. Holy See. https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_two/chapter_two/article_7/ii_respect_for_persons_and_their_goods.html
- Strong’s Hebrew 7523, ratsach, with the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Brown-Driver-Briggs entries. Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7523.htm
- Exodus 20, Hebrew–English Bible, English text of the Jewish Publication Society translation (1917). Mechon Mamre. https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0220.htm
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Book I, chapter 20, tr. Marcus Dods. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120101.htm
- Augustine of Hippo, On the Morals of the Manichaeans (Book II of On the Morals of the Catholic Church and of the Manichaeans), chapter 17, section 54, tr. Richard Stothert. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1402.htm
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, question 102, article 6, replies to objections 1 and 8, tr. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2102.htm
- Martin Luther, Small Catechism (1529), Part I, the Fifth Commandment. BookOfConcord.org. https://bookofconcord.org/small-catechism/part-1/
- Westminster Larger Catechism (1648), questions 135–136. Orthodox Presbyterian Church. https://www.opc.org/lc.html
- Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary, Proverbs 12. Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/commentaries/mhc/proverbs/12.htm
- Russian Orthodox Church, Bases of the Social Concept (2000), section XIII, “The Church and ecological problems.” Department for External Church Relations. https://old.mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/xiii/
- Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy Ware), “The Discipline of Fasting.” Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Eastern America. https://www.easterndiocese.org/news_170226_1
- The Apostolic Canons, canon 51. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 14. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3820.htm
- Jim Blackburn, “Is It Morally Right to Put Our Dog to Sleep?” Catholic Answers, 20 December 2023. https://www.catholic.com/qa/is-it-morally-right-to-put-our-dog-to-sleep.
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