All dogs, and cats, and pigs, and goats, and cockroaches go to heaven: So says Pope Francis

NY Daily News ^ | 07/24/2015 | BY BRUCE FRIEDRICH

[SeekAndFind]

The question of whether animals will join us in the afterlife finally has a definitive response from Rome.

It’s a topic that’s been long debated, with Popes weighing in unofficially on both sides. Last December, a story broke nationwide claiming that Pope Francis had declared that animals are going to heaven, but it turns out that the media had conflated two stories, and that it was actually Pope Paul VI who had, many years earlier, told a young boy that “one day we will see our animals in the eternity of Christ.”

Paul was later contradicted by Pope Benedict XVI, who said in a sermon that “for other creatures, who are not called to eternity, death just means the end of existence on Earth.”

Notably, neither of these were doctrinal statements, and Catholic theologians continued to disagree and debate.

But no more. Despite last year’s media mix up — and despite Paul’s and Benedict's contradictory statement — Pope Francis did just officially declare that animals will join us in heaven, in his June 18 Encyclical, which offers official and binding doctrine on the question.

In fact, he has gone far beyond animals and the afterlife, linking animals to the Trinity and declaring that the Mother of God “grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for creatures of this world laid waste by human power.” For Catholics, the idea of Mary grieving for both the poor and animals, in the same sentence, is revolutionary.

So it’s almost anti-climactic that on the question of animals in heaven, Francis takes a stand: “Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.”

[onedoug]

And viruses. The Pope seems a tad unbalanced.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Tagline

[SkyDancer]

If I can’t have bacon in Heaven, I’m not going.

[kinsman redeemer]

I think since the idea of having our favorite pets in heaven makes us feel good, it is true.

( not really)

[kinsman redeemer]

Maybe they’re in FUR-gatory!

Who knows ?

[Salvation]

LOL!

[EnquiringMind]

I think I care about your beliefs.

Not really.

[xzins]

Horses. I know there are horses.

And likenesses of eagles, cows, lions, lambs, etc.

[P-Marlowe]

Horses. I know there are horses.

Is there going to be a racetrack or a glue factory?

[xzins]

Is there going to be a racetrack or a glue factory?

Stick to your Racing Form.

It won't lead you astray.

[BlueDragon]

More than half of it deals with prudential judgments, the physical sciences, the social sciences, public policy proposals, and other non-Magisterial material. Which is to say, it is strictly outside of the competence of the magisterium.

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syn·cre·tism

n.

1. Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.
2. Linguistics The merging of two or more originally different inflectional forms. ____________________________________________

[Greek sunkrētismos, union, from sunkrētizein, to unite (in the manner of the Cretan cities) : sun-, syn- + Krēs, Krēt-, Cretan.]

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I was just talking with a Catholic friend who knows a whole lot more about the international Left than I do. She says she can see the fingerprints of "United Religions" and "Agenda 21" are all over this thing.

You don't say?

There were more than a few among us here on FR who recognized, at FORTY PACES --- those same fingerprints.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Exactly. That’s why this is actually the worst-case scenario come true. As I said to another FReeper, “If Pope Francis is in fact leading things astray to this extent, I’d want for him what I’d want for my own self under the same circumstances: a timely and repentant demise, and a merciful judgment.”

[Fledermaus]

Great...mosquitos in Heaven...will there be Off?

[bonfire]

Maybe he meant “hell”?

[BlueDragon]

Yes, I saw that last portion or paragraph.

Will the neo-Malthusians do it for him?

I suppose if he is one of their mouthpieces, probably not...

In one way or another, they'll choke the living daylights out of the rest of us, instead. (or keep trying to...)

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Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

-Moby Dick on Gutenberg.org

[daniel1212]

Maybe they’re in FUR-gatory! Who knows ?

kinsman, that was bad!😀

[Mrs. Don-o]

The really perplexing thing about Laudato Si--- and, by extension, this whole papacy --- is the amount of ambiguity and contradiction. You think you have him pegged as one thing, and he turns out to be another. You are sure somebody has misrepresented him, and it turns out they have represented him to a T.

Did you read where I said I color-coded LS? The are parts of it which are rather wonderful. There are other parts that make me think he is out of control of what he is saying. It's not just a structural/composition problem in the "architecture" of the encyclical, so to speak. Clearly he didn't write the whole thing: but still. It's almost like parts of a divided personality struggling for coherence. It's got more lamentation in it than the Lamentabili.

I don't want to play "Junior Psychiatrist" or over-think this thing. Nor are my hunches likely to be that accurate. But in his case, I have the hunch of an interiorly suffering man, weighed down with a sense of global doom, hoping... hoping what? Hoping to allocate grain fairly when "famine grips the whole world"? Like Joseph in the house of Ban Ki-moon?

[daniel1212]

I thought the Papal Encyclical was just opinion on church and spiritual matters - more or less. Acting as the Vicar of Christ, the statements would be made from St. Peter’s Throne and known as Ex Cathedra and, therefore, binding truth for all Catholics as doctrine. Isn’t this so, Catholic brothers and sister

Though i am not a Catholic, and if i may post information without it being seen as being contentious flame baiting (which is disallowed), according to much church teaching I would have to say no, no, encyclicals and other papal public teaching, including social teaching, also normally requires assent.

Of course one must recognize not only the different levels of church teaching but the different levels of assent. If you want actual statements by popes and Catholics and can engage in civil exchange, then it would be best if you asked.

[daniel1212]

Cats? In Heaven? Has he ever owned a cat? Cats are natural born blasphemers. They all think they are God.

Too often too close to the truth! The cat came not to minister, but be ministered to. Meow.

[Just mythoughts]

Just put on permanent ignore. They own the highway. Let God sort it out as He promised.