POPE FRANCIS AND THE ANIMALS

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . .”

                     ~ John 1:14

“Man and beast thou savest, O Lord.”

                        ~ Psalm 36:6b

            There has been a great deal of press coverage about Pope Francis and a statement he was reported to have made to console a young boy who had lost a pet.  “Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.”  The statement immediately filled the internet with all manner of people weighing in on what this might mean for Christians.  I posted a link to this story about the statement on the Dominion In The Image Of God Facebook page.  It got quite a number of views.  Then it turned out he didn’t say that after all (although Pope Paul VI apparently did).[1]  According to the Regions News Service, what he really said, citing the Apostle Paul in a discussion of the End Times, was that the new creation was not the annihilation of all that is, “but the bringing of all things into the fullness of being.”  The New York Times’ corrected story quotes him as saying, “Holy Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us.”  The Religion News Service has a very helpful story about how the Pope’s statement became transformed through interpretation and errors in reporting. 

            Whatever the Pope’s actual words, the story got a lot of people talking about whether we will, indeed, see our pets and other animals in heaven.  

St. Blaise with animals

The New York Times has a good story originally written with the mistaken quote in mind (since corrected), with comments from a number of people, including some people I’ve mentioned in this blog, such as Charles Camosy, author and professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University, Christine Gutleben, Director of the HSUS Faith Outreach Department, and Laura Hobgood-Oster, author and professor of religion and environmental studies at Southwestern University.  Dr, Camosy reminds us that the Pope was speaking pastorally, so we should be cautious about dissecting his comments academically.  Ms. Gutleben observed that the Pope’s remarks may suggest that animals have a soul, and that has implications for how we should treat them.  Dr. Hobgood-Oster commented that Catholic teaching has never been clear on this question because it raises so many other questions. 

The article also includes a quote from Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producer’s Council.  I am unsure of Mr. Warner’s theological qualifications, but he wants us to understand that just because animals may go to heaven, that’s no reason not to slaughter and eat them.  Our “dominion” over the animals, he assures us, means that animals are here for human benefit.[2] 

I am not a Catholic, and I will not presume to try to interpret what Pope Francis meant in the remarks he actually made or to speculate about what he might say if asked directly about whether pets go to heaven.  I appreciate the conversation he has sparked, however, and the conversation sparked by the misattribution of Pope Paul VI’s remarks to Pope Francis.  I do want to contribute to this conversation with a few observations. 

First, however we answer the question of whether animals go to heaven, we must bear in mind that our answer implicates not just our beloved pets, but other animals, as well.  While C.S. Lewis, a great animal lover and someone whose theological writing I generally find very helpful, attempted to argue that some animals may go to heaven only through their association with humans, the argument is unconvincing. [3]  I am unaware of any subsequent theologians who have been persuaded by this view.  It depends, as do many arguments that animals live only for this life, on the idea that animals are not “conscious” beings, that they live only in the moment, experiencing only a series of sensations, without memory or expectation to string those sensations into a “personal narrative.”  Thanks to the scientific study of animal lives and animal behavior, we know now this is not true.[4]   If our pets go to heaven, so do other animals, including the animals humans so mercilessly and carelessly exploit.

Second, I don’t think that the answer to this question should really impact how we treat the animals.  Whether we conclude that they go to heaven or that this life is all they will ever know, we know beyond any dispute that they suffer in very real ways here and now.  It is that suffering that we must seek to address.  As Andrew Linzey has argued, if all they are to know is this life, is it not incumbent on us to show them even greater moral solicitude?[5]  Do we not owe it to them, in our task to reflect God’s character to them, to ensure that they know as much happiness during their brief existence and as little misery as possible?  But if they do go heaven, is it not incumbent upon us to honor their relationship with the Creator and value them as He does?  Neither position on the ultimate fate of animals provides any excuse for cruelty; both should make us think very seriously about all the ways we treat animals and whether we would be comfortable explaining our choices to God. 

St. Jerome removing a thorn from a lion's paw

Third, I have briefly addressed this issue in the Frequently Asked Questions page of this blog.  There I argue that we cannot really know the answer in this life, but that there is much in scripture to give us reason to hope that we will see our pets, wildlife, food animals, and other creatures there:  
 

        The traditional view has been that humans alone were created with immortal souls as part of our creation in God's image, and thus only humans go to heaven.  Viewing our creation in the image of God as a vocational element of being human (that is, as tasking us with representing God) rather than something inherent in the way we are made, frees us to look at the question a different way.  While I don't think we can conclusively answer this question yes or no in this life, there are many places in Scripture to give those of us who take great joy in animals in this life reason to hope that they will be with us in the next.

           For example, both Hosea and Isaiah are very clear that animals will be with us in the New Creation (Hos. 2:18; Is. 11:6-9).  Revelation speaks of animal-like creatures being with God in heaven and of all the creatures of the earth praising God and the Lamb (Rev. 4-5), as well as horses being with God (Rev. 6:1-8), and Paul tells us that the whole creation groans in anticipation of salvation (Rom. 8:19-22).  Scripture also tells us that God cares for, is in relationship with, and covenants with the animals.  

            John Wesley, in his sermon, the General Deliverance (see Resources page), argued forcefully that animals will indeed be in heaven. Andrew Linzey (see Resources page) argues that a God of mercy will not allow animals to exist only to know the misery so many of them suffer on earth.  

David Clough has much to say that is helpful on this topic in Part Two of his book, On Animals, which I will be discussing in coming weeks.  In his discussion of the incarnation, Clough addresses the obvious point that Jesus Christ was incarnate as a Jewish man in a particular time and place, and that the church has since its earliest days struggled with what this means for Christ’s saving work.  It has come understand, however, that salvation is not limited to Jews, to men, to the people of the Middle East, or to the people of the first century.  Nevertheless, we hold fast to the distinction of his humanness, rather than his incarnation in any other form, understanding that because Christ was human, His saving work is restricted to humans.  This, Cough argues, “risks misleading by understating the significance of the incarnation” (p. 84). 

The Gospel According to John tells us not that the Word became human, but that “the Word became flesh.”  Clough considers a number of the contexts in which the Greek word here translated as “flesh” is used and concludes, “The fundamental New Testament assertion concerning the incarnation, therefore, is not that God became a member of the species Homo sapiens, but that God took on flesh, the stuff of living creatures” (p. 85).  This raises a host of issues that I will consider in a later post, but I highlight it here because if Christ’s incarnation and saving work implicate all flesh and not just humans, then there is every reason to believe that other creatures will be with us in heaven. 

In addition, Christ becoming “flesh” underscores the point made in Part One of Clough’s book, and the point made so well by Richard Bauckham[6], that we are all common creatures before God, with much more in common than separates us.  As Genesis chapter one tells us, both humans and other animals were infused by God at the creation with the same nephesh hayah, the same “breath of the life.”  With this fundamental commonality between humans and animals, and in view of scripture’s stories of God’s love for and covenants with the animals, it seems to me that the strongest ground for arguing that animals do not go to heaven is simple human hubris, the desire to set ourselves above others and to grasp for ourselves that which we value.  But, in the paradox of divine love, it enhances, rather than diminishes, human stature to share God’s extravagant love with our fellow creatures and to give away what we value.  We become more fully human when we do not insist on taking our place at the front of the line and then shutting the door behind us.  

Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom

To argue that only humans go to heaven, it seems to me, requires us to cling to the idea that we are, in substance, different from the animals.  That idea is not supported by Scripture and is no longer supported by Old Testament scholars.  We do have an arguably different role before God than other creatures – as Clough explains, each type of creature is called to function in its own unique way in the created order – but that role is to make use of our delegated power to reflect God’s goodness.  I see nothing in that distinct role to support the idea that only humans go to heaven.  Instead, it suggests to me that God loves the animals and cares about their well-being, and so it seems more logical to think that He would care for them after this life as well.

In closing,here is a link to a final article written about the dogs and the possibility of heaven for the National Catholic Reporter, written shortly after the Pope's remarks by a writer whose dog had passed away. 

Photo by: Dietrich Benninghaus;

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[1] On the other hand, Pope Benedict XVI was reportedly “insistent” that animals do not have souls, according to RNS.

[2] He adds that “dominion” requires “stewardship,” which means “humane care and feeding – something all farmers who raise animals practice every day of every year.”  In view of the National Pork Council’s persistent defense of gestation crates, I’m afraid Mr. Warner’s definition of “humane care and feeding” strikes me as somewhat Orwellian.  I think I hardly need add that, in my view, he is seriously mistaken in his understanding that the gift of “dominion” over the animals means that the animals are here for our use.  Rather, as I have argued repeatedly throughout this blog, our creation in God’s image and the gift of dominion go hand in hand, and they require that we reflect to the animals God’s character and dominion over all creation.  As Clough has persuasively argued, the animals are not here for human benefit, but are here, like humans, to be in relationship with God as Trinity. 

[3] Lewis, C.S, The Problem of Pain.  New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1962, pp. 129-143.

[4] See my series on animal intelligence, Ask The Animals, Parts One, Two, Three, and Four.

[5] See, e.g.,  Lindsey Andrew, Why Animal Suffering Matters, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 25-27.

[6] See, Bauckham, Richard. Living With Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2011.