Posted on 12/11/2014 7:59:05 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
In his weekly address at the Vatican late last month, Pope Francis issued a remarkable statement that’s sure to come as welcome news to anyone who’s ever lost a beloved pet. According to Francis, the promise of an afterlife applies not only to believers, but to all animals as well.
"The Holy Scriptures teach us that the realization of this wonderful plan covers all that is around us, and that came out of the thought and the heart of God," Pope Francis said, as quoted by Italian news site Resapubblica.
The Pope then went on to say that “heaven is open to all creatures, and there [they] will be vested with the joy and love of God, without limits.”
Pope Francis’s stance on animals stands in contrast to that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who despite reportedly being a cat lover, said that animals’ existence was limited to their time on Earth. But Francis isn’t the first pontiff to take an animal-friendly approach to ideology. As newspaper Divisione la Repubblica notes, Pope John Paul II held a similar position, saying animals had a “divine breath.”
This isn’t the first time that Francis, who adopted his papal name in honor of the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi, has spoken out on behalf of nonhumans. In his first homily as pope, Francis articulated mankind’s role in serving not only the divine, but in all creatures born from it:
“The vocation of being a ‘protector,’ however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as St. Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live."
What a cute puppy!
“The Lamb will lay down with the lion” is in the KJV though I can’t remember where.
Don Bluth is a poor substitute for scripture.
WOW! Good point. Revelation, maybe? I am not a Biblical scholar.
LOL...you are on a roll today! :-)
I can believe that some animals have neurological defects that make them insane, as do human beings.
I find it hard to believe that the bits from Isaiah about even wild animals being at peace with each other are just poetic
I think that’s a misquote - it’s lambs lying with wolves.
Isa 11:6
Man, there is going to be a lot of beef cattle and poultry in Heaven. We’ve slaughtered a lot of them!
This goes directly against what God actually said directly to me.
See #21.
For sure......
NIV Isaiah 11:6
Right.
I agree!
Another angle on that is how “surprised” or “offended” one would be, either in the here and now, or at Judgement, to find that some of those who’d been known to be despicable in the corporeal life ended up accepting Christ in the nick of time and were in heaven.
I always heard lions. Now, you made me check my source and I have not even finished my morning coffee.
lambs hang out with wolves,
leopards with baby goats,
and lions with fatted calves.
Good morning.
“I can believe that some animals have neurological defects that make them insane”
I see you have cats.
5.56mm
You misheard. What he really said was “Stop doing that or you’ll go blind.”
Try this online Bible lookup site with a zillion translations:
https://www.biblegateway.com/
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