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.”

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Why be 'taught' something that is NOT binding?"

That's actually and excellent question, Elsie.

First, you've got to make a distinction between Magisterial and non-Magisterial teaching; second, within the Magisterial teachings, a distinction between different levels of authority .

Let me try an example (centered around "water") to illustrate this.

Consider these statements:

1. Psalm 146:5-7
   "Blessed the one whose help is the God of Jacob,
   whose hope is in the Lord, his God,
   The maker of heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them,
   Who keeps faith forever,
   secures justice for the oppressed,
   who gives bread to the hungry"

2. God made and owns all the water on the planet. He created food and drink for the good of all His creatures. (Ibid.) (Psalm 145:16 - “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”)

3. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, He will judge us on criteria such as "When I was thirsty, you gave Me to drink: for whatever you do to the least of My brethren, you do unto Me." (Matthew 25:31-46)

4. It is murder to knowingly or negligently deny someone nutrition/hydration in such a way that it causes or hastens their death.

5. It would be gravely morally wrong to knowingly or negligently expose people to pathogens or poisons in their drinking water.

6. To protect drinking water from pathogens, water suppliers often add a disinfectant such as chlorine. However, chlorine itself produces byproducts which are poisons and may pose health risks.

7. Chlorine can also be weaponized: concentrated chlorine can be a WMD in carrying out chemical gas warfare or an act of terrorism.

8. A major moral responsibility for water suppliers is to provide protection from pathogens while simultaneously minimizing health risks from hazardous byproducts. Safe drinking water must be provided in amounts which are adequate for basic human needs (at least, preventing death from dehydration).
   
   Chlorine shipments should be safeguarded and kept out of the hands of terrorists.

9. Market forces cannot be the sole determinant in fundamental matters such as water purity and water supply; the common good takes precedence over private profit, short-term public budgetary savings, political manipulation or military advantage.

10. Access to critically needed water can involve international relations. International accords should ensure that highest-bidder market processes or international power plays do not leave whole populations of helpless people dying of thirst.

11. There should be international regulation of international shipments of chlorine so that it does not become weaponized in the hands of terrorists or rogue states.

As you can see, these quotes all deal with water and “faith and morals,” and judgment between right and wrong. However all of these statements do not bear the same authority.

My own quick assessment would be that

• #1 is inerrant because it is Scriptural Revelation.

• #2 and #3 are Doctrines directly and necessarily derived from inerrant Revelation.

• #4 is Moral Law based on Divine and Natural Law, as authoritatively expounded by the Catholic Church.

Therefore, #1 - #4 are always morally binding.

• #5 is Moral Law, but it is contingent and partially a prudential judgment, as you can see when you look at #6 and #7.

• #6 and #7 are scientific statements of fact. As such, they are not, in themselves, part of Magisterial teaching. But they have an important impact on #5, as well as on #8,#9,#10 and #11.

• #8 and #9 are part of the Social Teaching of the Church, and are necessarily derived from both Divine and Natural Law.

  Scripture gives us critically important examples of just behavior:

  (Psalm 36:7) "Your justice is like the highest mountains; your judgments, like the mighty deep; human being and beast you sustain, Lord." -- the Lord's justice sustains life;

  (Proverbs 31:9) "Open your mouth, judge justly, defend the needy and the poor!" --- public authorities' first duty is to sustain life, as a matter of justice, even for people who at the time can't pay for it, i.e. the needy and the poor;

• #10 and #11 are prudential judgments, i.e. they fall under the category of international diplomacy, trade, and public policy. They are not Magisterial per se. However, they deserve careful consideration as to whether they are the best ways to carry out the requirements of justice.

[BlueDragon]

Did you read where I said I color-coded LS?

Yeah, I saw that.

It left me cold as stone (and a little hot under the collar, all at the same time...)

Didn't we just agree that syncretism was at work?

This latest encyclical, according to "Popes" themselves, is a teaching document that must be taken as "ordinary teaching authority".

The 'less than half of this particular encyclical' which 'deals with "faith and morals" as you put it, was described within the encyclical as matters which do attend to/intersect with --- faith and morals, and were very plainly ---even quite deliberately so--- fully enough (sad to say) entwined with faith and morals.

That is the syncretism which I was seeing, which you seemingly in reply #92 had just agreed was adopted as made part of "Ordinary Magisterium".

You had remarked in comment #73;

"The encyclical itself states, more than once, by way of a disclaimer, that the Church has not got the authority nor the intention of replacing science and politics"

when the point was not that is was the [Roman Catholic] Church which was itself engaging in "science", yet still was inarguably putting forth sense that there was and is a call, even a moral responsibility for income disparity, coupled with environmental issues ----to be addressed, and those issues addressed, even politically.

Those sort of things were included among that which was said, while as you seemed to have acknowledged --- the handiwork, the "fingerprints" as it were, of World Religions and Agenda 21, said to have been ---- all over the document.

In my own view, that leaves the door propped WIDE OPEN for the furtherance of those same globalist-environmentalist agendas which I am not alone in being concerned that; in final result contributes to the way the entire world, as is even now presently being sought to be brought under singularly oppressive domination, has just had that very thing implicitly endorsed by the Vatican --- which oppressiveness will come first (as is demonstrated, already) through sundry bureaucracies, and then by whomever can seize control of those mechanisms...

I mourn for my country. I am dying here...this, is killing me

After all is said --- and it has been said, the Encyclical has been published, no more second guessing as to what it would hold...

...yet still it is said; there are those things which still are to be done (?);

--- and who are you? Are you gonna' save us with a handful of highlighters? That would be nice, and although I do appreciate the effort, IF WISHES WERE FISHES IT WOULD BE A STINKY WORLD

Have you been commissioned to do this sifting & segregating of 'papal encyclical'?

How can anyone un-syncretize that which has just been inexorably entwined together --- without being either "cafeteria Catholic", or else more completely spurning papal 'authority' as true and binding in the first place?

I'm not at all buying that issues which were discussed in that papal letter can be so neatly segregated.

It may do for a this, or that individual's own perceptions ---- but ---- the Encyclical taken in aggregate, will be taken for 'signal' to those who are already on their own moralistic, save-the-earth crusades. Those individuals and groups thinking to themselves that doing all this 'saving' of the planet itself, will in some 'magic' way help bring peace, justice, and prosperity to suddenly break out ALL OVER THE WORLD.

They now have not merely their own consciences to comfort them while they go about forbidding (possibly any and all) human activities which they perceive harm the earth (the sky is not the limit there...it's included!) but now have the moral backing of the Western world's largest and most tightly wound religious organization (the very one which claims itself to be foremost authority --- over "All").

If others (not 'Catholic') brought in the not-so magic markers, picking and choosing, marking things up with highlighter;
then would not those individuals be mercilessly castigated (by some around here) for allegedly misrepresenting official RC "magisterial teaching"?

And that's just the beginning of sorrows, of course, for FR is just one small pond among larger ponds, lakes, rivers, estuaries & oceans, and so in the bigger scheme of things, in one sense (in light of objections towards whatever it is that comes out of the Vatican) scarcely matters, or so we here have been told repeatedly.

...Except for this Pope's wordy-wordiness(?)...then, well, everybody gets to have a go at whatever it is the guys says..? (he makes me appear brief and succinct, in comparison).

In regards to this latest Pope, Francis the Talking [fill-in-the-blank], it seems like it's ok for most anyone to ignore parts of what he says...if it's not dealt with by a "what he really meant to say was...", or else this artificial limiting, and walling off with "color-coding", portions of what he has signed off on from the rest of the other "teaching"--- all of which had indeed bundled issues together, relating them all together, in one holistic entirety.

Isn't that the very way which all other papal encyclicals ---it has now long been insisted must be how--- those sort of writings are to be understood?

The contents of the latest encyclical are not off-the-cuff remarks, it is not just as if the man was merely himself speaking his own mind, rather than as a 'pope' allegedly speaking the mind of God (at any given moment, in history)\.

---

The[re] are parts of it which are rather wonderful.

Is there anything there among that which you said is 'rather wonderful', that is truly an original thought?

Must one wade through 34,000 words in order to find the few(?) concepts which are rather wonderful?

Larger, more complex mousetraps, are rarely a better mousetrap.

---

---

It is far easier to keep one's integrity intact while remaining still an intellectually honest Protestant other-than Roman Catholic Christian.

Döllinger

"As a Christian, as a theologian, as an historian, and as a citizen," he added, "I cannot accept this doctrine." From the Roman Catholic viewing point he thereby became an heretic as he clearly and publicly denied a doctrine proposed by the Church Magisterium to be divinely revealed (de fide divina).

[Mrs. Don-o]

For the nonce, BlueDragon, let me direct you to the above post:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3316208/posts?page=161#161

Give me a bit of time to look over what looks like a very complex question from you. I will have to pop on my triple-tiara thinking cap.

+{{{|:o)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Do you realize you just sent me a 1,050 word question?

:o0

[BlueDragon]

I already saw it.

I'm not impressed.

It does nothing to touch upon what I have been saying.

I've seen enough mirages to recognize them for what they are.

Any real water which could be found there, need not be found only by and under RCC "magesterial teachings", for whatever is of actual worth, one can find more directly (and much more simply) within the written Word.

[BlueDragon]

I don't expect answer to questions -- nor was I seeking any.

Instead, those were asked rhetorically, in order to spur thought within whomever would encounter and follow the thread and the conversations which have been taking place on this thread.

Simple enough?

[BlueDragon]

Do you realize you just sent me a 1,050 word question?

How many thousands (tens of thousands?) of words have you written, on this thread alone? (that's another one of those "rheotorical" questions. I don't expect anyone to go and count words here).

But we're all expected to read through and thoroughly digest (and agree with -- with no complaint?) all of that?

I don't think so, sister.

What I wrote, was about how much of what you've saying here -- just does not work.

It's not as simple as you appear to be making it out to be. If those contortions and specialized filtering apparatus as described and [allegedly] exampled can be said to be "simple".

It's mind-numbing to have to wade through it all...

[Mrs. Don-o]

Please forgive me. I didn't mean to say you're too prolix, or beg off reading what you wrote. (I'm doing that right now.)

A just answer from you might have been, with just a wee scent of snark, "Right back at'cha, Miz Schoolmarm!"

Now I'll go back to parsing your previous post --- my homework!

[Elsie]

...would be called something else.

[Elsie]

I do not share esteem of the Pope simply because of what your church ascribes to the person holding that position.

My church is WHAT?

[Elsie]

Elsie, you really shouldn't take God's name in vain.

HOW was it taken in vain?

[Elsie]

Yes; but....

"Why be 'taught' something that is NOT binding?"

[Elsie]

I sent you a short one and I didn’t count the words in your ‘answer’.

[Lazamataz]

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

Wow. Now I *know* this guy has zero connection to God. Won't get into the circumstances, but I have direct knowledge from God to the contrary.

[HarleyD]

One can only hope mosquitoes are not included.

[xzins]

One can only hope mosquitoes are not included.

If there are no bloodsuckers, then one can only assume that politicians are banned.

[maryz]

One can only hope mosquitoes are not included.

Didn't C.S. Lewis respond to a critic who ridiculed his essay, "The Pains of Animals" ("Dr. Lewis seems to envision a heaven for mosquitoes") by observing, perhaps acidly, that it did not seem impossible to him to combine a hell for humans with a heaven for mosquitoes? ;-)

[EnquiringMind]

Eewww, creepy.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Good!

I've been out picking elderberries. Now I've gotta get all that purple juice off my hands.

[blue-duncan]

Hey, how about Psalm 36:5-6?