meeeeeooooowwww: Priests bestow blessings upon cats and dogs

OLD TOWN, Maine — Tad and Kim Johnston brought their two cats to St. James Episcopal Church on Sunday afternoon to get something Ruby, 12, and Opal, 4, definitely needed — a blessing from their parish priest.
"They need it," Tad Johnston of Old Town said. "Opal’s been staying out late at night and Ruby has congenital heart problems."

The Rev. Susan Lederhouse blessed three cats and four dogs in an informal service that has become a permanent part of many churches’ yearly calendars.
Events focused on blessing household pets and sometimes farm animals most often are held in early October near the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 4. He is the patron saint of the environment for Roman Catholics and often is pictured surrounded by birds and small mammals.

Blessing the animals, Lederhouse said, was a way to honor the saint’s role with animals and to celebrate creation.

"All creatures have souls of one kind or another and God takes care of them," the rector said. "We bless animals for the same reason we bless people — to feel closeness to God."
Lederhouse’s pastoral view that animals have souls is not one espoused by the Judeo-Christian tradition. Eastern religions and American Indian spirituality, however, take a different view.

The Western tradition rejects the idea that animals have souls because they are not rational and cannot choose between right and wrong, the Rev. Will Tuttle of Healdsburg, Calif., told Newsday earlier this year. Tuttle was trained as a Zen Buddhist monk and has written about animals and the afterlife.

"The creation story in the Book of Genesis [says] that only humans were created in the image and likeness of God and thus only humans have a soul," the Rev. Bill Labbe, pastor of the Roman Catholic churches in Old Town and Orono, said last week.

The Rev. Lyman "Terry" Phillips, head of Grace Evangelical Seminary in Bangor agreed, but added that animals do have a "life force."

"Do animals have souls? Not in the sense that human beings do, souls with the additional characteristic of ‘spirit,’" Phillips wrote in an e-mail response. "The Scriptures do not seriously suggest a [spirit] animates animals, so the soul — aka life force — for an animal is something different from what animates the human being, created in the image of God.

"There is certainly life force in animals, though, and the ancient Israelites thought it was in the blood," he continued, "which is why Jewish dietary laws prohibit eating the flesh of animals with the blood still in it. The blood must be allowed to run out, according to kosher food preparation, so the life has a chance to become free from the body of the animal."

Islamic law forbids all forms of animal cruelty and mandates that thirsty animals be given water before humans, according to the Richard Foltz, author of "Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures." The traditional scholarship is that animals have souls, but there is a disagreement over whether they are eternal, as human souls are.

Practitioners of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and shamanism believe that animal and humans are "all in this together," according to Tuttle.

"The primary reality [in these faiths] is seen as consciousness," he said earlier this year. "Whether that consciousness manifests as human beings or animals, there’s a sense that when consciousness finishes the experience of one life, it goes on and is born again."

For those who believe their next life most likely will be in heaven, the question posed to the pastor often is, "Will my animal friends be there with me?"

Phillips, Labbe and Lederhouse agree that the pastoral answer to the question is most likely "yes."

"Because pets have become so important to people, I think the situation calls for pastoral sensitivity," Labbe said. "For the most part, since heaven is a return to paradise and in the biblical description of paradise there were animals then it would be fair to say that pets go to heaven."

Phillips agreed.
"A very wise person once answered this question for an adult friend of mine," he wrote. "If you will need to see your pet in heaven to be happy, God will provide for you to see your pet, because God is going to provide for our happiness in His kingdom."

Tad Johnston didn’t have his cat blessed to guarantee that he would see her in the Great Beyond. After receiving her blessing last year, he said, Ruby, despite her health problems, made it through another year. He just hopes the blessing is as effective on Opal.