Why do Catholics not consider pork as unclean as Islam?
Jesus himself explained that not everything that comes from outside makes a person unclean.
Why do Catholics eat pork while Jews and Muslims consider pork unclean?
There are different reasons for eating and not eating certain types of meat among different cultures and religions. There are also movements that call for abstaining from meat altogether.
For example, recently, an animal rights group sparked controversy when they sent a letter to Pope Francis, urging him to issue a total ban on Catholics eating meat in any form.
According to the ACI Prensa news agency, the group argued that “meat should not be eaten when the health of the planet and the future of life are threatened.”
Regarding meat consumption in general, the news agency consulted Father Francisco José Delgado, of the Archdiocese of Toledo, Spain, about what the Catholic Church affirms.
He said: “In tradition, the Catholic faith has never forbidden eating meat.” He added that this doctrine is consistent “with what the New Testament says.”
Clearly Jesus taught that “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person” (Mk 7:15). Surprised by Jesus’ custom of the Jews, the disciples wondered what he had said, he explained to them: “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Mk 7:18-19). The evangelist Mark emphasizes: “Thus he declared all foods clean” (v.19).
This is also the basic reason why Catholics are not forbidden to eat pork, even though the tradition of the Jews and Muslims does not allow it because they consider pork unclean.
Father Francisco José also recalled that Saint Paul the Apostle had argued that there was no problem in eating meat sacrificed to idols, because these rites had no religious value. However, believers could freely abstain from such meats for reasons of conscience. Father Francisco José also stressed that, in this case: “The reason for abstaining from meat does not depend on whether it is animal meat, but on whether it has been sacrificed in a pagan rite, as was the custom of the Gentiles.”
He also spoke of the meaning of Catholics abstaining from meat for reasons of penance, such as during Lent.
“The logic of atonement is not to give up what is forbidden, because this is always done, but to give up what is allowed. If the Church calls for abstaining from meat on certain days or if some religious orders are always called to do so or at certain times, it is precisely because the Church is allowed to eat meat.”
Finally Father Francisco José recalled that Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians in Christian history, clearly affirmed that it is permissible to kill animals to feed oneself, and similarly it is permissible to use plants to feed oneself.
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