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The Sacred Cow

16/6/1990,

When I spent a year in India in 1979 I began to understand why Hindus reverence the cow don’t eat beef. In a heavily populated country the cow is very important. It gives nourishing milk. It ploughs the rice fields. Yoked to a wooden trailer it carries heavy loads. Its dung is used as fuel or, mixed with water and clay, as an antiseptic paste on the floors of poor houses. The cow in India is honored as a mother. How could one eat one’s mother! Hindus wouldn’t listen to a preacher who ate beef.

Actually, some years previously in Fiji was on my way to dinner with a Hindu schoolteacher. A Hindu temple priest discretely approached me. “Come and eat with us. We are having beef!” he whispered conspiratorially. I suppose he thought that a European would jump at such an invitation. Though a little shocked I politely explained that I had a prior invitation.
On my return from India I was assigned to work with Indo-Fijians for a few years. I decided to become vegetarian. Our Lautoka presbytery cook could cope with this and I enjoyed vegetarian curry.
But while studying in Rome in the mid-eighties I used to spend my holidays in Ireland. My mother was not used to catering for a vegetarian but she made great efforts to adapt. However my counsellor in Rome challenged me with giving my mother this trouble. So I reverted to eating everything.

Now back in Fiji, I was at a prayer meeting last night in a Catholic Indo-Fijian home. A very open Hindu family had attended prayer meetings there for many years. One of them who knew about my time in India asked if I was still a vegetarian. I said that I had to give it up while at home in Ireland. “Do you eat everything?” he asked. “Yes, I do” I answered. “Father eats EVERYTHING!” he reported immediately to his family members. His emphasis indicated that I now ate beef. I was reminded again how shocking beef-eating is to Hindus.

I have now decided that I will eat meat, but not beef.

by Fr. Frank Hoare