The Abbey of St Walburga

Anyone else see the show on NBC the other night about the nuns at The Abbey of St Walburga in Colorado? They have a ranch and are quite successful at selling "beef" based on the consumers assumption of "humane meat" and "irreverence" for the animal's life... (???) I found it quite upsetting, to be honest. I am sending them a letter, although I am well aware that the chance of being *heard* might not be very high (or no chance at all lol).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Abbey of St Walburga
Benedictine Way
Livermore, Colorado 80526

With Respect to Those of The Abbey of St Walburga:

Sometimes I am so overcome by pain I simply feel at complete loss as to what to say…how can I adequately express what I need you to hear?

I saw the television segment about your ranch. It made me so very sad. In the hopes you will hear me out, I decided I must write my deep sorrow on paper and share it with you. PLEASE just take a few moments to read my short letter - in hoping to make my point initially I will surely struggle to find the right words - so please read it through.

To see this industry garner the support of what I assume are such lovely, dedicated people at The Abbey of St Walburga - such a terrible industry with such horrible effects - is absolutely heartbreaking to me. I had tears in my eyes and felt such deep sadness seeing that segment.

Our society has long-held beliefs that we have justified in irrational ways. We cause the suffering of other species to the detriment of our Earth and other humans. We know it takes a lot of food, water, and land to raise animals. We invest a lot more resources ‘farming animals’ than we receive back as a benefit, making it a counteractive and detrimental method of producing food for humans. As one of the many consequences of this the ‘animal farming’ industry globally contributes to world famine, all while causing soil depletion, pollution, and loss of biodiversity on a massive scale.

By encouraging and aiding the ongoing consumption of meat and animal milk we also nonverbally support the egregious loss of our rainforests and the displacement of indigenous people everywhere. Many activists have been killed fighting against the very industry you align yourself with. While erroneously believed to be ‘different’ in fact you are complicit. Are you familiar at all with Sister Dorothy Stang? The documentary “They Killed Sister Dorothy” is the beginning of a small peek into a VERY deep rabbit hole of crimes against all humans, animals, and Earth.

We know that even at minimum we must do unnatural things to these vulnerable beings - such as the removal of male calves and/or forced insemination, which is actually sexual assault on another woman when viewed objectively.

Additionally we have no dietary need for animal ‘products’ and they are known to increase rates of human disease – so no matter how ‘cleanly’ raised – you are potentially complicit in harming the health of another, harming our Earth, ignoring the overuse of available resources, and also assaulting a sentient being who inherently values their own life. Why be a willing participant in all these horrible things when instead we could easily choose to support life SUSTAINING and life GIVING habits that are truly about love and compassion for all beings?

There is no need for humans to kill to live. Our humanity, our ecology, our spirituality, and our health aligns with this simple yet utterly moral principle. We can feed more people with plant-based foods, we can have less pollution, we can have healthy bodies and clean ecosystems, and we don’t have to be violent. Not to mention it is a fallacy of logic to state “irreverence” of anything mercilessly killed for no logical purpose or bodily need. To truly respect life would be for The Abbey of St Walburga to become a SANCTUARY, a safe place for all sentient beings – a place of love, nonviolence, and true reverence.

Our falsely-held beliefs allow us to justify a plethora of negative effects, along with system-wide horrific injustice and oppression of thinking, feeling, fellow beings. Beings that are able to clearly communicate the emotions of love, suffering, and pain. Most people who are complicit are not cruel people, most are not indecent intentionally. In a sense we are all victims – of lies, manipulation, and an extreme cognitive dissonance that allows us to believe we are kind and decent while actually being horrifically cruel and violent and being harmful to all we love – and to everything that truly matters.

Perpetrators throughout history have explained their violence and oppression by insisting it was "natural", or they were abiding by God, or that their victims were “different”, or “inferior”, or did not have the sameness in capacity for emotion or thought. Throughout our entire history those have been our [wrong] reasons for the disregard of other sentient lives. I personally do not feel any loving God would support the utterly unnecessary destruction, bloodlust, and negative impacts of animal farming but would instead embrace peace, nonviolence, and avoidance of killing except possibly under dire survival circumstances.

By killing some species and valuing others we are setting nonsensical criterion for who is inferior, deciding whose lives matter less. That is the basis for *all* discrimination, oppression, violence, and judgment of others and is simply wrong.

We can change history. We can have peace. We can have a clean planet. We can have health. We can stand in support of the wonderful, brave people such as Sister Dorothy, and the hundreds of others who have been killed just for speaking up. We can just stop being violent. Right now – we can stop. We can focus on the development of the person most of us were born as – a nonviolent, nonracist, non-judgmental, nondiscriminatory, nonspeciesist, with little (none?) desire to harm or kill anyone.

What I have said here makes total sense and is in alignment with all that is good and just and compassionate in this world. Tradition does not make right, as many abject traditions have been ejected when shown to be erroneous or obsolete.

To see such good people supporting such a deplorable industry breaks my heart, sincerely and truly.

Thank you for listening.

Do unto others…

Sincerely,

Karyn Swaney