| Pope Benedict XVI's views on animals "Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or 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 realtionship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible." |
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As far as whether we are allowed to kill and to eat animals, there is a remarkable ordering of matters in the Holy Scripture. We can read how, at first, only plants are mentioned as providing food for man. Only after the flood, that is to say, after a new breach has been opened between God and man, are we told that man eats flesh... Nonetheless...we should not proceed from this to any kind of sectarian cult of animals. For this, too, is permitted |
| to man. He should always maintain his respect for these creatures, but he knows at the same time that he is not forbidden to take food from them. Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or 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 realtionship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible. And as reported in KnightRidder newspapers, when he was cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI was also known for his love of cats and used to care for cats near a church in |
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Perhaps you know about Pope John Paul II's love of non-human animals, being the first pope to proclaim that "the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren", and that animals are "fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect" and are "as near to God as men are". But what about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI on the 19th April? This is what he said when |
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| interviewed by German journalist Peter Seewald when he was Cardinal. Seewald: Are we allowed to make use of animals, and even to eat them? Ratzinger: That is a very serious question. At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God's creatures, and even if they do not have the same direct relation to God that man has, they are creatures of his will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation and as important elements in the creation. |
| Campasanto Teutonico near St. Peter's Basilica. "I went with him once," said Konrad Baumgartner, the head of the theology department at Regensburg University. "Afterwards, he went into the old cemetery behind the church. It was full of cats, and when he went out, they all ran to him. They knew him and loved him. He stood there, petting some and talking to them, for quite a long time. He visited the cats whenever he visited the church. His love for cats is quite famous". |