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
