Catholic Values and Animal Rights

In the May 15, 2009 edition of Catholic San Francisco, in the column "On the Street Where you Live" by Tom Burke mention is made of a pleasure trip Boar Hunt taken by a benefactor and a priest. While the online version lacks photos, the printed version of that column a picture shows the smiling benefactor, Dr. Louis Limchayseng (who had won the boar hunt as part of an auction benefit ting Our Lady of Loretto Elementary School in San Francisco), the smiling, rifle-wielding priest, from Our Lady of Loretto Parish in Novato, Fr. Bill Nicholas, and in between them, the dead boar.

I found this display of slaughter as entertainment to be in poor taste. And wrote the following letter to the editor of the column and to the Executive Editor of the paper. Because that newspaper does not publish letters they receive, I publish my letter here:

Dear Tom Burke,
I found your inclusion of the photo featuring Dr. Louie Limchayseng and Fr. Bill Nichols holding a gun positioned on either side of a dead boar to be of extremely poor taste in your “On the Street Where you Live” column of the May 15, 2009 Catholic San Francisco. The fact that a Catholic Elementary school, Our Lady of Loretto elementary School, would allow such an event be auctioned to support their mission is sad enough, but to feature in your publication a photo of a priest wielding a gun and the dead animal indicates a cruelty and brashness that our church, especially the leaders of the church, would do well to dismantle. In the city of Saint Francis and on page 2 of a publication carrying the saint’s name, I am dismayed and deeply disappointed by your editorial decision to feature an animal’s death with gloating men on either side. I don’t think slaughter as entertainment is a Catholic value that you should be so openly promoting.

Sincerely,
Darleen Pryds
Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality and Medieval History
Franciscan School of Theology(Graduate Theological Union)
Berkeley, CA