The Benedictine Women of Madison, Wisconsin, know a thing or two about green living. The ecumenical order’s new Holy Wisdom Monastery is being called the greenest building in America after receiving the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest-ever rating for sustainable construction.

Pardon me, sisters, but there’s a way for you to go even greener. PETA is asking the Benedictine sisters to adopt a vegan diet and serve only vegan meals at the monastery. As most of us know by now, eating meat is mean, not green.

We also point out that Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) has in the past spoken movingly about the plight of farmed animals. During a 2002 interview, he said that the “degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”

So what say you, sisters? Will you make the switch?

Written by Paula Moore