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‘One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures’

To some extent, it is not a surprise that Francis, an Argentine Jesuit whose papal namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, was the patron saint of animals, would suggest to a saddened child that his lost pet had a place in the afterlife.

Citing biblical passages that assert that animals not only go to heaven, but get along with one another when they get there, Francis was quoted by the Italian news media as saying: “One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.”

The question of whether animals go to heaven has been emotionally debated throughout much of the church’s history. Pope Pius IX, who led the church from 1846 to 1878, strongly supported the conservative doctrine that dogs and other animals have no consciousness.

Pope John Paul II appeared to reverse Pius in 1990 when he proclaimed that animals do have souls and are “as near to God as men are.” But the Vatican did not widely publicize his assertion.

John Paul’s successor, Benedict, seemed to emphatically reject his view in a 2008 sermon in which he asserted that when an animal dies, it “just means the end of existence on earth.”

Ms. Gutleben of the Humane Society said Francis’ apparent reversal of Benedict’s view could be enormous. “If the Pope did mean that all animals go to heaven, then the implication is that animals have a soul,” she said. “And if that’s true, then we ought to seriously consider how we treat them. We have to admit that these are sentient beings, and they mean something to God.”

Sarah Withrow King, director of Christian outreach and engagement at PETA, said the pope’s remarks could influence eating habits, moving Catholics away from consuming meat.

“I’m not a Catholic historian, but PETA’s motto is that animals aren’t ours, and Christians agree. Animals aren’t ours, they’re God’s.”

The New York Times News Service