Pope Francis requested to go vegan this Lent

Image from Million Dollar Vegan

Million Dollar Vegan, a global non-profit campaign group is calling on Pope Francis, head the Roman Catholic Church, to help “fight climate change with diet change”. In return, Million Dollar Vegan is offering to donate US$1 million to a charity of the Pope’s choice, should he pledge to eat only plant-based diet for Lent.

Lent is a time when Christians traditionally abstain from particular food items, often meat. It is observed for six weeks leading up to Easter which is April 21 this year.

The call to Pope Francis came via an open letter from Genesis Butler, a 12-year old US animal rights and environmental activist. In the letter, published early this month in newspapers from 15 countries around the world, Butler urged His Holiness to try vegan for Lent. The letter also outlined the connection to climate change and pollution, the inefficiency of animal farming and how it contributes to world hunger, the extinction of wildlife and the suffering of farmed animals — issues that Pope Francis has spoken out on in his 2015 Encyclical Letter, Laudato si’. 

"Farming and slaughtering animals causes a lot of suffering and is also a leading cause of climate change, deforestation, and species loss," Butler further wrote. "When we feed animals crops that humans can eat, it is wasteful. And with a growing world population, we cannot afford to be wasteful."

As of this writing, the Pope has yet to reply.