A Sua Excelência Reverendíssima

Dom Mathias Tolentino Braga

Abade do Mosteiro de São Bento de São Paulo

Largo de São Bento, s/no. - Centro

01029-010- São Paulo - SP

Most Reverend Abade:

We appeal to the benevolent purity of Your Excellency’s heart, asking that you grant our request based on your compassion for the weaker creatures that have no justice in this world.

It hás come to our attention veal will be included in the meals that will be served to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, at the Saint Benedict Monastery, on the occasion of His Holiness' visit to São Paulo. We, a coalition of both Brazilian and international groups dedicated to efforts promoting the dissemination of knowledge pertaining to the suffering that is laid upon animals, are very perplexed upon hearing this news.

Our perplexity is due to the fact that Your Most Reverend Excellency along with the whole community of monks at the Saint Benedict Monastery in São Paulo, who will host His Holiness, as well as the members of his entourage, are doubtless kind and compassionate people, who have chosen to dedicate your lives to the exercising of your faith.  Therefore to serve and to eat food whose production is characterized by the most abject cruelty are acts that are contrary to such values and good intentions.

We prefer therefore to believe that you, Most Reverend Excellency, along with the others, simply are unaware of the horrors that characterize the production of veal, which should be a shame to all of us, human beings, possessing sufficient intelligence and sensibility to reject such atrocity.

Veal is the meat of an immature calf that is taken from its mother almost immediately at the moment it is born. During approximately three months, it remains confined in a narrow and dark cell. It is tied in such a way that its movements are restricted, this way not developing muscles and it is for this reason that veal meat is “tender”. The animal is also not allowed to go to pasture. Fed only small quantities of milk (not directly from its mother, but rather by mechanical means), the young calf is underfed and anemic, producing a meat that is “lean” and pale.

By the end of their confinement and in debilitated health, these sensitive animals, unprotected by the companionship of their mothers, finally go to the slaughter in overfilled transport trucks which carry them to the slaughterhouse.

We humbly inform Your Most Reverend Excellency, that His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, set an example in rejecting the cruel practices against innocent beings, denouncing the forced feeding of geese for the production of foie gras, as representing a violation of Biblical principles.  We furthermore inform Your Most Reverend Excellency that a similar letter to this one is being sent to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.

In this way, we appeal to Your Most Reverend Excellency, lead by the singular purity of your soul, to make the decision not to serve veal to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, for this food originates in exploitation and torture. By choosing to exclude it, Your Most Reverend Excellency will be giving a relevant and memorable example of mercy and spiritual greatness to all, whether they be Christians or not, whether they be Catholics or not.

“So that in all God be glorified”  (Benedictine Maxim)

We most respectfully petition,

VEDDAS – Ethical Vegetarianism, Animal Rights Defense and Society

Contact: George Guimarães – Phone: +55-11-5585-3475 – veddas@veddas.org.br – www.veddas.org.br

A current list of signatories can be viewed at the address www.veddas.org.br/papa.htm