:: Action Against Poisoning :: 2005 :: 2 APRIL 2005 ::
POPE Karol Wojtyla, Ioannes Paulus PP. II 16.X.1978 - 02.IV.2005
Pope Ioannes Paulus II declared animals have a soul!
Received: Monday, April 04, 2005 1:35 PM
This is huge because there is 1 billion Catholics in the world.
This Pope has drawn record crowds, in the Philippians 7 million
people showed up to listen to him.
Now, when people tell you animals don't have a soul, you can tell
them that Pope John Paul II declared animals have a soul!
Pope John Paul II Taught Love for Animals
As Catholics around the world mourn the passing of His Holiness
John Paul II, non-Catholic animal lovers join them in their
grief.
Pope John Paul II taught love for animals more than any other pope
in recent memory.
Read about His Holiness' dream about a homeless cat and her
kittens.
In 1990, His Holiness proclaimed that "the animals possess a soul
and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren."
He went on to say that all animals are "fruit of the creative
action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect" and that they are "as
near to God as men are." Animal lovers everywhere were
overjoyed!
The Holy Father reminded people that all living beings, including
animals, came into being because of the "breath" of God. Animals
possess the divine spark of life-the living quality that is the
soul-and they are not inferior beings, as factory farmers, fur
farmers, and others who exploit animals for profit would have us
believe.
After he became Pope John Paul II, His Holiness went to Assisi, the
birthplace of St. Francis, and spoke of the saint's love for
animals. He declared, "We, too, are called to a similar
attitude."
PETA is grateful that His Holiness spoke out so beautifully for
animals and their souls, and we hope that his successor will also
speak out for them with the same love and compassion. Catholics can
honor his teachings by incorporating compassion for animals more
fully in their own lives.
Rochester Animal Protection Society
www.mnraps.org
Note:
We regret that we have not heard earlier of the Pope's love for
animals as we had a dim view on clerical concern for animals. See
our wish for 2003 calling religious leaders to speak out against
animal cruelty.
We might have been ill informed on the efforts of the Roman
Catholic Church to end animal cruelty within her sphere of
influence. If so, we have not noticed any significant effect of
Papal concerns on his believers.
Although delayed we will gladly spread his vision in the hope that
it will be relayed by lower echelons to his flock. After all, if
animal cruelty is not a legal issue, it certainly is a moral
issue.
We are very concerned about the religious based exceptions on the
animal welfare paragraph of the EU Constitution (article III-121).
Please inform us on clerical protests against these
exceptions.
Action Against Poisoning
www.jesusveg.com/popecats.html
THE POPE AND THE HOMELESS CATS: John Paul II Had a Dream
by J.R. Hyland
The first time I read the account of Pope John Paul II's dream, the
thing that surprised me most was the fact that it was included in
the book God's Broker. Published in 1984, the book was the result
of 200 hours of conversation with the Pope. These interviews began
soon after the author, Anton Gronowicz, was introduced to the Pope
in 1979 and continued for two years, in the Pontiff's apartment at
the Vatican.
An American citizen of Polish descent, Gronowicz was the longtime
friend of many highly place clergypeople. And in the prologue to
his book, he explains how he was able to circumvent Vatican
bureaucracy. "Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Primate of Poland,
introduced me to the Pope, acquainted me with Vatican circles, and
convinced the Holy Father that he should bypass the Vatican
Department of State and grant me private interviews"
Subtitled The Life of John Paul II as Told in His Own Words, the
subject matter of the book ranges from reminiscences of the time
when the Pope was known as Karol Wojtyla, a young man living under
the Nazi occupation of Poland, to his reflections on social justice
issues, theology, and church doctrine. And in the midst of these
human-centered concerns, the author devotes four pages to a dream
the Pope related to him, about a homeless cat.
This surprising interpolation might lead to the conclusion that the
author understood the significance of the dream: that he was
sensitive to the plight of God's other creatures and the way they
are abused. But the comments he makes as the Pontiff relates his
dream indicate he had little understanding of the implications of
what he was being told. But from the way in which this dream
preserved its vigor and immediacy so many years later, it is
obvious that it was very important to John Paul and that he fully
understood its implications.
In his dream, John Paul follows a homeless mother cat who was
trying to find food and shelter for herself and her kittens. She is
turned away by those who lack nothing themselves and by men who
represent the various faces of established Christianity.
The dream took place in 1969 the night before the Pope, known then
as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, was to visit New York City for the first
time. It was late summer and he had been touring Canada. He spoke
of the beauty of its fields and forests and how he had wished for
more time to walk in woods vibrant with color and with his "ears
filled with the songs and voices of animals."
In the midst of this discussion of Canada, the Pope abruptly
changed the subject and said: "The night before my departure from
Canada to New York, which I had never seen, I had a strange dream."
But his dream was not of beautiful forests, warm with the summer
sun. It was of a crowded city, frigid with the cold of a northern
winter. And although he had never been there, his dream captured
the way Manhattan looks and feels after a major snowstorm.
"It was a terribly severe winter in New York; the city was
completely covered with snow. Inhabitants were well off and warmly
dressed and walking slowly along roads because cars, due to
mountains of snow, could not be operated. I was happy that I could
walk on top of the snow on avenues of white.
"All my physical effort was spent on walking. To this day, pictures
of huge apartment houses on both sides of the avenue are instilled
in my mind and the doormen quickly closing and opening entrance
doors as though trying to prevent humanity and warmth from
escaping.
"On top of the snow, I noticed a brown cat emerge from a side
street and walk on the snow. I looked closer and, to my surprise,
saw that this big cat was being followed by six small
brown-and-white kittens, all of them following the big brown cat in
a perfect line. The mother cat looked back from time to time to see
if her babies were there, but her main concern was to reach the
entrance door. I presumed she was trying to find warmth for herself
and her children, but as soon as she reached the door, a man in a
well-pressed uniform jumped at her with a broom and chased them
away. I followed this procession and prepared to deliver a speech
to the doorman. I opened my mouth and tried to complain, "Where is
your proverbial American generosity? Where is your American good
heart and fair play? Let them in. Let them in!!"
"I tried to speak, but the words would not come out. Maybe I was
afraid of the doorman with the broom. I started searching my
cassock pockets for a piece of bread, found some crumbs, and put
them on my palms, calling, "Kitty, kitty, kitty." But the words
would not come from my supposedly intelligent mouth. Instead, the
wind blew the crumbs from my palm, and I said, "What can I do? I
can't speak to the cats. I can't speak to the doorman. But there
are many hungry birds. They might pick up the crumbs."
"Again, I walked after the cats, now with a pain in my chest,
feeling tremendous cold. On the left, I saw a church building and
thought, "There we will find help." I heard singing, and again, the
idea occurred to me that it must be a Catholic church. The music
grew louder, as though trying to convince God that they were
praying to Him.
"The mother cat jumped in front of me and climbed the stairs,
followed by her kittens. I raised my head and saw a tall Jesuit
priest chasing the cats off the steps. But as I was about to shout
at the Jesuit, "I am a cardinal!" and give an order to accept the
cats, the mother cat and her offspring ran behind the church
because from there came the appetizing aroma of food. Probably
there was a kitchen there. But a second Jesuit appeared at the
kitchen door and scared the cats away. They returned to the avenue
and started walking north.
"They walked on the same side of the avenue as the Jesuit church
and I followed. Then they reached an imposing red brick church. An
Anglican bishop appeared and said to the cats, "My dear animal
children, please go immediately to the animal shelter. There is
food for you there. We Anglican clergy donate lots of money to the
animal shelter every year at Christmastime."
"The mother cat and her kittens didn't even meow. They knew the
authoritative voice of the Anglican bishop. They walked uptown and
gradually the luxurious buildings disappeared, together with the
doormen, and we saw drab dilapidated apartments.
"As they walked and the buildings grew shabbier and dirty, a door
was opened, not by a doorman but by an old wrinkled woman in a
cotton dress. She saw the cats and shouted, "Oh, little mother,"
and when she opened her mouth, I saw she had few teeth. She gently
ushered the mother cat and kittens inside, who jumped happily about
because the warmth of the house embraced them."
The narrative ended as the cats found a safe haven with the woman
who had little enough, herself. When the Pope concluded his dream,
the author to whom he related it did not make any comment on what
had been said. But he did write that "I had never seen such a sad
expression on the face of this man." Considering that this was the
same man who had related the horrors of his young manhood under
Nazi occupation, the author's remark shows the deep impact this
dream had on the Pope.
If the Pontiff offered a commentary on his dream, Anton Gronowicz
does not share it with the reader. But we are told that John Paul
began to recite the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. "Lord, make me
an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love
..., where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness,
joy.
Many years after Cardinal Wojtyla had his dream and had become Pope
John Paul II, he made a pilgrimage to Assisi, the birthplace of St.
Francis. In the Message of Reconciliation he delivered there, the
Pontiff spoke of the Saint's love for animal, as well as human,
beings. And he likened that inclusive love to an anticipation of
the Peaceable Kingdom, envisioned by the Prophet Isaiah, a world in
which all God's creatures will live in peace with each other.
The Pope also said that the "solicitous care, not only toward
people but also toward animals and nature in general," that St.
Francis demonstrated is "a faithful echo of the love with which God
in the beginning pronounced his "fiat," which brought them into
existence." And, the Pope added, "We, too, are called to a similar
attitude."
Some who read these remarks are surprised to find in them such
strong support of God's other creatures. They are surprised to hear
the Pope refer to the lives of animals as a manifestation of God's
love: lives that deserve our "solicitous care." But I was not
surprised. By the time I came across a copy of the message he gave
at Assisi, I had read God's Broker and the lengthy account of the
Pope's dream. And I knew that if John Paul II had not wanted this
very revealing dream to be published, it would never have appeared
in print.
So in spite of the policies and pronouncements of religious people
of the same or other persuasions, who try to denigrate the value
and the importance of the lives of God's other creatures, we know
that John Paul II had a dream. And although people of lesser vision
and lesser spiritual development have closed their hearts and their
minds to the needs of other creatures, John Paul has given witness
to a need for the "solicitous care, not only of people, but of
animals."
In this witness, the Pope is being true to the Gospel message in
which Jesus also gave witness to the need for the solicitous care
of all beings: "I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of
these least important ones, you refused to help me." (Matthew 25:45
TEV)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; 757-622-PETA