Nov. 19, 2008 - St. Joseph's University Hawk News

Battery Cage Eggs Conflict with Catholic Values
By Nick Cooney, Director of The Humane League of Philadelphia
(Op-ed)

As a Jesuit university, we expect Saint Joseph's to live out the values it teaches and put Catholic ethics into action in all aspects of its operations. Unfortunately there is one area where St. Joe's is acting in direct opposition to the teachings of the Pope and other Catholic leaders, and it's an area that might surprise you: the cafeteria.

St. Joe's cafeteria, run by the Aramark corporation, currently purchases eggs from cruel "battery cage" egg farms-warehouses where hens are confined in small, filthy wire cages. Each battery cage is smaller than this opened copy of The Hawk that you hold in your hands, and yet in that small area five to nine birds will be crammed together for their entire lives - unable to spread their wings, barely able to turn around, and living among the excrement of other birds. Their feathers are often torn off from constantly rubbing against the cage bars, and they suffer a host of other cruelties.

Battery cage eggs have been condemned by the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the U.S., and other animal protection groups. They have also been condemned by organizations like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council for their unsustainable and destructive impact on the environment. But these groups are not alone in their condemnation of battery cage egg farms.

Pope Benedict has also explicitly condemned battery cage eggs, stating that when "hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible." Battery cages have also been condemned by the National Catholic Bioethics Center, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, and other Catholic organizations and leaders.

In response to a growing outcry against battery cages, over 300 colleges and universities have already made the switch to "cage-free" eggs. These include neighboring schools like the University of Pennsylvania and Immaculata University, another Catholic school. Battery cages have been banned as criminal throughout the European Union and in the state of California, and even fast food chains like Burger King and Denny's have been phasing in cage-free eggs. While cage-free does not mean cruelty-free, cage-free farms represent a significant step forward in terms of sustainability and in terms of reducing the suffering of farmed animals. A switch to cage-free would also bring St. Joe's in line with Catholic social teaching on this issue.

GREEN COW, St. Joe's student environmental organization, is currently working with the administration to get St. Joe's to join the hundreds of other schools that have already made the switch to cage-free. And they are not the only ones speaking out in support of such a change: over 1,000 students and faculty here at St. Joe's have already signed a petition calling on the administration to do the right thing and go cage-free. Signers include students of all grades, alumni, and faculty from (among many departments) the Food Marketing program, the Theology department, the Campus Ministry office, University Priests, and the Dean's office. You can see the petition as well as a two-minute video on battery cage egg farms at: www.CageFreeStJoes.com.

To their credit, the administration has expressed support on the issue and is looking into making the switch-certainly the right and necessary thing to do given Catholic teaching on this issue and the overwhelming support for such a change by the university community.

But Aramark's Dining Services managers continue to drag their feet and offer hollow and blatantly dishonest excuses to students, including members of the University Student Senate who met with them to encourage a switch.

If Aramark's Dining Services operation here continues to ignore and disregard the desires of the university community, and continues to operate in blatant contradiction to Catholic teaching, perhaps it's time to switch to a more responsive and more responsible food service provider- many of Aramark's competitors are already cage-free.

The continued purchase of battery cage eggs is a black mark on the university, and should be ended immediately.