Vegetarianism and animal rights are based on the ethical paradigm of compassion for all sentient beings, not on some strict dogma. Vegetarians do not eat animals because they know that animals on factory farms are treated like machines. Within days of birth, for example, cows have their horns torn from their heads and chickens have their beaks seared off with a hot blade. Male cows and pigs are castrated without painkillers. All of these animals spend their brief lives in crowded and ammonia-filled sheds, many of them so cramped that they can't even turn around or spread a wing. Many do not get a breath of fresh air until they are prodded and crammed onto trucks for a nightmarish ride to the slaughterhouse, often through weather extremes and always without food or water. Finally, the animals are hung upside down and their throats are sliced open, often while they're fully conscious.
Since, according to Christian tradition, Jesus gave his life willingly, and there is certainly no additional suffering involved in receiving the Eucharist (communion), to partake of it is not a violation of one's vegetarianism.
The Nazarenes of Mount Carmel
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