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A Theological Case for Compassion: Modern Voices on Animals and Creation
A growing consensus among Catholic theologians and faith leaders affirms our critical duty to protect animals, recognizing them as important, individual members of God’s creation who are beloved by their Creator.
Below, explore powerful excerpts and reflections on stewardship, mercy, and the place of animals in God’s Kingdom:
Respecting the Community of Creation:
“The Creator is not a throwaway God. We humans do not stand alone as subjects of divine love. In the community of creation we all share the core identity of being beloved creatures…. As a deliberate religious teaching, this conviction has profound ethical implications.”
– Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, America MagazineAnimals in Heaven:
“If God’s ultimate hope and desire for the individual animals of our present age is that they come to enjoy a world where they will know only the harmony and compassion of the kingdom, it seems reasonable to suppose that God would want those whom he has appointed stewards to begin fashioning such a world.”
– Father Christopher Steck, SJ, A Heaven for Animals: A Catholic Case and Why It MattersLiving in Peace with All Creatures:
“If in that final fullness of life with God, animals too will be present in the great new reality God has in store for us—a Paradise open to all—would we not do well to live together in peace now, aiding our brothers and sisters who live in poverty—and killing animals, small or large, pet or foreign to us, as rarely as possible?”
– Father Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Harvard Divinity SchoolGiving Animals Special Moral Consideration:
“From the perspective of the Bible, our Christian tradition, and current Church teaching, nonhuman animals are cared for and valued by God independent of the interests of human beings. But it is precisely because most of us do not see nonhuman animals as objectively valuable—and have an important interest in seeing them as mere objects and products to satisfy our desires—that they are a vulnerable population which has been pushed to the margins of our culture and society. Those of us who follow the example of Jesus Christ, therefore, should give them special moral consideration and attention.”
– Charles Camosy, Ph. D., For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics and Consistent Action
Our Responsibility to Other Animals:
“Other animals share in God's likeness and along with other hominids are important players in the overall evolutionary drama, that is, they are not simply means to generating human beings. Understood in this way, [our capacities as creatures made in the image of God] … are present as a means to express an active relationship with God according to the pattern of humble service set forth in Christ. Human responsibility is therefore not simply individualistic, but a shared task to make room for the creatures who share our creaturely home.”
– Celia Deane-Drummond, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science What Responsible Dominion Means:
“When substitute products are found, with each creature in turn, responsible dominion calls for a reprieve. The warrant expires. The divine mandate is used up. What were once “necessary evils” become just evils.... It doesn’t seem like much to us, the creatures’ little lives of grazing and capering and raising their young and fleeing natural predators. Yet it is the life given them, not by breeder but by Creator. It is all they have. It is their part in the story, a beautiful part beyond the understanding of man, and who is anyone to treat it lightly? Nothing to us—but for them it is the world.”
– Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
BOOKS:
A Heaven for Animals: A Catholic Case and Why It Matters, Rev. Christopher Steck, SJ
For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action, Charles Camosy, Ph.D.
Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ
Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, Matthew Scully
All God’s Animals: A Catholic Theological Framework for Animal Ethics, Rev. Christopher Steck, SJ
Come Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ
Creaturely Theology: God, Humans and Other Animals, Celie E. Deane-Drummond, Ph.D.
Jesus in Nature: A Monastic Christology, Samuel Torvend
ARTICLES:
Animals in Heaven, Living on Earth, Father Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Harvard Divinity School
What Does It Mean to Believe in an Ecological God?, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, America Magazine
Christmas and the Animals, Matthew Scully, National Review
Lessons from a Dog, Matthew Scully, National Review
Our Addiction to Animal Cruelty, John Berkman, Ph.D., Catholic Moral Theology
Review: Will Our Pets Go to Heaven? Celia Deane-Drummond, Ph.D., America Magazine
The Religious Significance of Vegetarianism, Father Francis X. Clooney, SJ, America Magazine
Is it time for Catholics to stop eating meat? John W. Miller, America Magazine
