Pope Francis says that heaven is “open to all God’s creatures.” All dogs (and cats?) really do go to heaven, you guys. Awesome. [Buzzfeed]
Dissecting this photo of Angelina Jolie & Amy Pascal. [LaineyGossip]
Lea Michele’s eyebrow situation is… interesting. [Dlisted]
Ewan McGregor is beardy, gun-toting. [Pajiba]
Vicki Gunvalson “accidentally” posted a nude pic. [Reality Tea]
Kim Kardashian got North West something special for Christmas. [Wonderwall]
Ryan Gosling does some crazy stunts. [A Socialite Life]
Emily Blunt looks super-slim in Lanvin. [Go Fug Yourself]
Nicki Minaj made another video for “Only”. [OMG Blog]
Alessandra Ambrosio needs attention. [Moe Jackson]
Taylor Swift must like Karlie Kloss clad in leather. [Popoholic]
This bunny-eating story is awful. [Starcasm]
Dr. Dre made more money than Beyonce this year. [ICYDK]
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley looks like a doll in these photos. [Celebslam]
Movies told me that when I was little.
I ADORE Pope Francis. That is all, from this Hanukkah-celebratin’ chick.
This Hanukkah-celebtratin’ chick seconds that!
Only four more days until the fun begins. Wooohooo!
This Chanukah celebrating chick, her yarmulke & tallit wearings dogs and our foster think he’s a pretty hip dude too
Happy Hanukkah to all of you!
Thank you! It’s a great gift that these days are so special.
Me too, Izzy, I adore Pope Frankie!
This devoted agnostic 3rds that. I sent him a bday present yesterday and told his PR email address all the ways pope Francis rocks my world.
That’s nice. Too bad he won’t stand up against China and have a measly audience with the Dalai Lama.
Great point. Pretty easy to tell people they get to see beloved pets again; a lot tougher, but more meaningful, to buck politics and meet with the Dalai Lama.
He may be concerned that meeting with the Dalai Lama would only help to harden China’s attitude towards the Tibetan people, by giving the Chinese leadership a new example of “outside interference” to point to when attempting to justify its further crackdowns. Given its historical attitudes to religion, the Chinese government is certainly not going to change its ways one iota in answer to pressure from religious groups. The Pope cannot influence Chinese policies in the way that, for example, its major trading partners can.
So Don Bluth was right, damnit!!
I bow to your Don Bluth reference.
as do I. All dogs go to heaven was probably one of the more adult kids movies I’ve seen.
What would even be the point of heaven if I wasn’t reunited with all my pets??
I have always believed that if heaven is even more wonderful than we can imagine, that our pets will be there.
I completely and absolutely expect to be reunited with my pets after death.
I’m glad you posted this news article, I saw it earlier and wanted to see what others had to say about it. I dare anyone to tell me my dog doesn’t have a soul. My dog most definitely does! I also feel that all animals have souls and deserve to go to heaven! I love how Pope Francis is very forward thinking. I hope to see him when he comes to the east coast next year.
I am devout believer but I asked my grandfather (whom I consider very well prepared and educated in this aspect), and he told me that he was sorry but pets don’t have a soul. I am sad because I would like to see Honey and Luna again (dog and cat).
I miss them and I sure hope they are guarding my daddy. :'(
They have a soul.
“very well prepared and educated in this aspect”? he’s old-school religious. not any more educated on the subject than you, hon. you know your pets – you know better than anyone if they have a soul.
Don’t offend my grandfather Ag. He’s more studied and prepared than you too.
I’m sorry that you can’t seem to form an opinion of your own.
Besides in the “more studied and prepared” field I think the Pope > your grandfather.
If you’re asking for a strictly Catholic answer, then short verse: of all created beings, humans are unique in having a material body and a soul.
Pope Francis was exercising pastoral care with a very young child, not expounding church truths.
I realize that most people love their pets, and I certainly wouldn’t tell them their pet was never going to meet them at the rainbow bridge, but if you want church teaching, there you are.
Humans tend to be rather arrogant and anthropocentric, thinking only they can think logically or have emotions and memories despite all evidence to the contrary if you actually live closely with another species and observe them. Other animals have different sensory sensitivities (cats and dogs experience odors in far greater nuance than humans, for instance) and communicate differently and most importantly have much different interests. So “intelligence tests” geared toward testing human intelligence just don’t work on them. If their bodies are smaller, their brains are smaller not because they’re unintelligent but because the brain’s major function is to run the body processes. That’s why female human brains are smaller than male brains- but in earlier times, men interpreted that to mean we were innately less intelligent than men. Humans are making the same mistake about other animals.
One observant author mentioned what I’ve observed also- the older the cat, the better they understand their pet humans’ language. She speculated that if cats lived long enough, they could be be Senators… I think they could do better than that, although they’ve got the napping on the job part down pretty well.
Kiki, no disrespect to your grandfather, but you need to realize that religion is widely open to interpretation and your grandfather’s is his alone. If you want to believe his version, that is your right, but you do not have to. The Bible is the same now as it what when he grew up, he does not have access to any information that you don’t. He has life-experience, sure, but sticking to the same belief for decades without reevaluating it throws that life experience right out the window as far as I’m concerned. That’s I think what Ag meant by “old school”. Rest assured there is a lot more information out there for you to explore regarding this topic, and you do not have to take your grandfather’s word for it, even if you respect his level of knowledge on the subject. You are allowed to have your own beliefs.
Hey Pía, yes I understand what to you are saying. I would love to see Honey and Luna again. I don’t totally understand why the Pope made such a statement. Thank you for being so nice. I don’t get why people need to be so rude about our own opinions. The poster above knows nothing about my grandfather (he’s no fanatic, he’s just studied religion since he was a boy and he constantly updated his info.) But what can I expect? Be proud of someone or defend your beliefs and you get attacked. Have a nice weekend!
My relatives believed in superstition (aka religion) too. I don’t agree with them. Doesn’t mean I don’t love ’em all the same though.
Are all the people who believe that animals have a soul vegetarians?
Budshists at least, Hindus too.
I am!
@Melly M: I don’t think animals having a soul and being vegetarian are necessarily connected. Afaik Native American belief systems valued animals and their souls very much but none were vegetarian. However having a soul would probably ensure that animals were treated with some dignity, even when they are killed for food instead of the way animals are treated in our society.
Personally I don’t really care about souls, but rather if something has feelings and can feel pain and that’s certainly true of animals.
I see where you are coming from but I don’t think they will ever be treated with more dignity as long as so many people want to eat such a lot of meat -which results in intensive mass animal farming.
Catholic doctrine is pretty clear that getting baptized is a requirement for entry to heaven.
Even in the case of infants who die before getting baptized, the Vatican basically says, “well, Jesus is merciful, so there’s some hope that an exception might be made….but seriously folks, baptize your babies ASAP”
So if you’re a believer, you might want to find a doggy/kitty/hamster, etc. baptism provider – after all, since babies can get baptized, it’s not like the creature undergoing baptism needs to have the cognitive ability to understand what’s happening.
Actually, Catholicism allows for non-believers, through good works and good deeds to also reach heaven, Ghandi being an example. That’s one of the differences between Catholics and fundamentalists. Also, the whole un-baptized baby thing kind of fell by the wayside post Vatican II.
The Pope is infallible when it comes to Catholic doctrine and is guided by the Holy Spirit. If the Pope says animals have souls then they have souls. End of argument.
PS: I am not devout and I always thought animals had souls, but that is what I was taught as far as the Pope. When it comes to Catholic law his word is infallible.
@D – raised Catholic here. A tragedy of a still born sibling still causes grief in my family. Because this innocent child never breathed outside of my mother, the Church condemned her to limbo. And she was not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. My parents never recovered. When the Church decided a few years ago that even stillborn children had souls and did away with limbo, I walked away for good. I only hope my parents were reunited with their lost daughter.
@Petitechat – the revision to doctrine regarding limbo was only a few years ago.
I agree with the answer Petitechat gave, I just wanted to add the Catechism of the Catholic Church is available online for free if anyone needs to or wants to read more about what the faith teaches, as opposed to what you might have been told it believes. In the case of baptism as a Catholic being the only entry into heaven, I’d suggest starting with paragraph 840. Post Vatican II teachings are a lot more tolerant of other faith (or lack of faith) traditions.
I’d only say that I disagree with Petitechat slightly (and it might be a matter of semantics, not real disagreement) in terms of “good works”. As Catholics, we have our faith first, and our good works are supposed to be outward signs of that faith– not a replacement or “buy in” to heaven. For those who never come to the faith, but live what the church (not me, I’m not in a place to critique anyone) would call a “Christian life” in terms of loving others, being charitable in words and actions, and living a good life, God is all loving and knows what is in a person’s heart, they could go to heaven too.
Actually, for Catholics, stating that anyone is not going to heaven is considered a sin in and of itself.
I don’t mean to spam the thread, but the Pope is only considered infallible if he is speaking excathedra (from the seat of Peter). That has happened fewer times that you can count on one hand. Whether a person agrees or disagrees with what Papa Francis said, this is actually not now church doctrine.
@petitechat: I based my comment on the statement on baptism on the Vatican’s website:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM
“As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.”
It seems to me that the Church does not state that unbaptized infants are assured entry into heaven. Rather, they say that since God is merciful, there is hope that they will be saved despite being unbaptized.
The way I paraphrased this position in my original comment was kind of flippant, but it seems essentially accurate?
@PunkyMomma: I’m terribly sorry to hear that. I can’t imagine how much pain such a hardline position must have caused (and to so many, when you consider what infant mortality rates were like in the not so distant past).
No, baptism has never been a Catholic requirement for heaven within my many decades of experience (survivor of 16 years of Catholic education here). They toyed with the idea of a limbo for unbaptized babies (hence the practice of baptizing infants and even miscarriages, which anybody can do- even a heretic like me, and I certainly would for the parents’ peace of mind). But really only the theologians believed that and even they have dumped the idea. My brother is a devout Catholic and doesn’t even believe in a hell, he often quotes somebody as saying if it exists, it could be unpopulated. One thing I heard repeatedly in Catholic schools was the idea that the concept of heaven had more to do with having a relationship/being in the presence of God, and the ideas of Hell and Purgatory (a temp hell) really involved lack of that rather than punishment. But humans like to believe that nasty people get their comeuppance in the afterlife, so that’s a major component of some Protestant flavors of Christianity. Not really a big deal among the vast majority of Catholics.
I asked a friend training for Christian ministry of the Protestant variety if he believed that fear of hellfire really kept people on the track of decent behavior. In his experience, he said it did for many. I was astonished, never really saw that among Catholics. They’re big on last-minute forgiveness at the time of death no matter how awful you’ve been, which is why so many priests have just quietly ignored the traditional prohibitions against burial on sacred ground for suicides. After all, who knows what happened at the end? The Catholic God has always seemed a lot kindlier to be than the one promoted by fundamentalist tv preachers…
I have never been happier to be an atheist.
My cats have souls and I’m “allowed” to believe that. Yay for free-thinking!
Sorry for your family’s loss, PunkyMama.
@Enui: (Now I’m spamming the thread)
I linked to the baptism portion of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Vatican’s website above. It states:
“Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude.”
Also: “Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved”
If my understanding is correct, the Church’s position seems to be “baptism is the one way we can definitively say will assure entry to heaven. For unbaptized individuals who have been exposed to Catholicism (or any branch of Christianity?) but are not believers, we can’t say that you can go to heaven, but we also won’t definitively say that you can’t”
Actually, reading further, I think I was being too generous in my interpretation – it does seem that the Catholic Church’s position is that unbaptized people who know about Christianity but remain unbelievers cannot go to heaven.
There really isn’t much wiggle room in “Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed”.
According to this, it seems that unbaptized former Christians would be most likely to be denied salvation.
@D,
I hope you’re still around. 🙂 I teach RCIA, so I read the passages about baptism and salvation every year– so I’ve had a lot of time to ponder it. The thing, in my opinion, about theology is that one can either be generous or miserly about it. I’ve discussed the idea of “knowing” Christianity, and what that really means. So, just hearing that people believe in Jesus really isn’t enough. I think (and I’m not alone on this, but there are people who are more strident who would disagree) that you’d have to know it like 2+2=4. In other words, you’d have to know the truth and deny it in order to be condemned (for lack of a better word).
Full disclosure: my dad and step dad are both atheist. My mom is kind of spiritual, but doesn’t believe in an anthropormophic god as far as I can tell. I went to Catholic school because it was the cheapest private option in an area with very bad public schools. I am a believer (most of the time, I have my doubts but I think that’s normal). As an adult, I’ve taken additional courses in theology, have received additional education to be a catechist, and as I mentioned before I have been teaching RCIA (which is adult religion for people interested in learning more about the RCC, and who want to come into the church).
An aside about limbo: limbo has never been an official church teaching, but because it was so common a belief a lot of people believed it was. I think that was mentioned in an earlier post, but my computer is running slow, and I don’t want to wait for it to scroll up to ascertain that.
As far as what kind of Catholic I am, I am a Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Jesuit loving bead rattler. 😀 I fully believe that while this path is right for me, there are a lot of ways to God– and that even my family members who don’t believe have as good a shot at heaven as I do.
I’m with you Original Kitten! Ever watch high mass on TV? Try it without the volume. It’s like a Vegas magic show. With more glitz.
@Punky momma
So sorry for what your family had to endure. Breaks my heart.
I like him. I think more that PJP2…
He just has this likable and cool vibe
And I have no doubt my very missed boy is in heaven.
The clue is in his chosen name: St Francis the animal lover (I guess?) rather than St Cruella de Ville!
I’m a thorough atheist, but a Catholic upbringing leaves its traces, so one is always interested to see what They are up to. This was a very kindhearted pronouncement, and kindness is love. Right on, Your Holiness.
• (About limbo and purgatory, though someone nay have said this, that was a mediaeval invention to screw money out of believers, who’d pay for masses to speed their dead past that hurdle to heaven. Brilliant scam.)
I love this guy. He might even get me started going back to mass again.
I started up again because my mom has Alzheimer’s and can’t get there alone but he makes me feel less bad being there.
A hug to you, Random. And your Mom. xo
What happens to cockroaches and bedbugs? Is there only a select group from the animal kingdom? What about horses and billy goats on crack? Or dolphins and sharks? Mosquitoes?!
Sadly, bedbugs, cockroaches, crack-addicted billy goats, and the blob fish remain in purgatory for all eternity.
HEY! that poor, unfortunate blob fish never hurt anybody…it’s just ugly.
just because its looks may offend doesn’t mean it’s hell or purgatory bound.
Funny!
*snickers*
Cockroaches and bedbugs – hell
Horses and billy goats on crack – rehab, then heaven
Dolphins – heaven
Sharks – hell
Don’t you know anything?
To clarify, only the billy goats were addicted to crack. The horses had a serious sugar habit, however.
You can eat all the sugar you want in heaven. That’s why it’s heaven.
Well, I dunno about dolphins… especially the males, lol
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2009/05/13/dolphins_are_violent_predators_that_kill_their_own_babies.html
I doubt Dolphins will go to heaven. I was pretty disappointed when I studied about their behavior…
I bet only the nice ones, go to heaven, not the crazy rapists.
I was very disappointed with male sea otters too . It broke my heart when I read what they can do. 🙁
Well, ok, dolphins – hell. Sorry, Flipper.
Cockroaches don’t die remember.
LMAO.
*snort*
🙂
Cockroaches are living proof that Hell is on earth.
..And bumble bees and kittens, that heaven is on Earth.
They die as all living things. The earth is both our paradise; and our tomb: we are of her; we came from her; to her we return.
Heavy.
I can go with that. I like this sentiment.
Nice wolfpup.
I sampled a pair of the Beats headphones at Best Buy the other day, and all I can say is that shizz isn’t worth 300 dollars. I have a pair that cost right around 14 bucks that work just as well if not better.
Please tell me more about the $14 pair. I’m in the market and I’m poor. 🙂
JVC HARX300= the bomb!
Thanks Rhiley!
It is insane what people are willing to pay for those. I tend to destroy things, so I’m happy with my $10-15 earbuds.
Same reason I wear cheap sunglasses. Constantly losing or sitting on them.
I have a pair of noise-canceling Bose headphones. I’m on a plane a lot, so it was worth the money to protect my hearing (though they mess up my hair). I have noticed that only the old farts like myself have Bose, whereas the twenty-somethings all have Beats.
He is such a modern human pope. I am a cat lover and i know my cat have a soul.
@Kiddo, or the ones owned by ignorant people that go on to attack and kill innocent people in the neighbourhood who are going about their daily business?
Now all that left to do is have a positive stance on gay marriages and then I will like you.
You don’t have to like him. He’s representing something that will never change that much. I am a devout Catholic but I support equal rights for everyone. There’s not much he can do.
You can’t change everything.
Change will happen in the Catholic Church when enough Catholics want it. It’s really always been that way. The bishops and the pope are actually pretty representative of the church as a whole, just time-shifted by a few generations. They will catch up with the regular people eventually. The history of the church is a testament to that. Individual bishops certainly are evidence also. I remember one US bishop decades ago speculated that since there really was no absolute reason not to ordain women other than tradition, the first ones to be ordained would probably come from a retired bishop who had nothing to lose. He said it might already have happened. Likewise with such things as a celibate clergy- married priests certainly exist (converts from related priesthoods such as Anglican, unbroken line of bishops since they broke with the Pope and thus recognized by the Ronan Catholics as true priests). So obviously there is no true bar to married priests, it’s just a cultural tradition.
@ Sona
you got it, 100%
Such nonsense. Appealing to the popular vote.
I was wondering when he’d died and come back so he could announce this with such certainty. Obviously not a religious one over here.
I know, the amount of theological goal post moving is staggering. I’m not religious at all, but this kind of thing is cringeworthy. Meanwhile he persistently comes out with guff like this- http://www.religionnews.com/2014/12/10/lost-translation-7-reasons-women-wince-pope-francis-starts-talking/ yet people are supposed to take him seriously.
Ehhhhh…
I’ve heard far, FAR worse about women from conservative politicians and they’re not supposed to be upholding an archaic religious institution like the Pope is.
I still see Francis as a step towards open-mindedness in what will surely be a VERY slow process for the Church.
And I’m a born and raised atheist.
sheesh! he was consoling a little boy whose dog recently died.. get a grip!
Oh well then, I mean if they can make stuff up as they go along, how about gay people should be treated as equals and woman also are the equal to men in the eyes of the church.
Again, get a grip. It was a comment to a little boy, nothing earth-moving. Geez, calm down and stop trying to start ignorant, nonsensical fights. You don’t like it or agree with it, move on and think about something else. And grow up in the meantime.
Oh, calm your nickers.
ita cricket,
and i dont know why people think he’s “making it up as he goes along” like an alibi for saturday night.
when i was a kid, the priests told us our pets went to heaven, otherwise it wouldnt be heaven to us
im an atheist but i think if there is such a place, humans dont have a stranglehold on it like the ambassadors club at the airport
Arelene: ” make stuff up as they go along” = religion.
exactly.
Proud Pagan and I love the Pope!
Me too. He’s a good man who’s trying. That’s all we can ask of anyone; that you honestly try. And I think he is.
Very true
PopeDude makes John Paul ll look like Pious X!
John Paul II was actually very conservative. He wanted to drag the Church back into the 18th century.
True, JP II was terrible. Love Francisco.
Wow, if you feel that someone who was adored by millions of Catholics was terrible, I can’t imagine what’s good for you.
Reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode in which that old hillbilly refused to enter into Heaven without his dog after the gatekeeper told him that dogs aren’t allowed in Heaven. It later turned out that place was actually Hell and that gatekeeper was a trickster.
Then an angel shows up and says of course dogs are allowed into Heaven, so both the hillbilly and his dog finally find their rest in Heaven.
That’s a really lovely story!
Now Heaven will be one more place I have to chase my dog out of the neighbors’ yards & back through a heavenly gated fence. Is his Heaven my Hell? XD
I experienced a Phantom cat at my mom’s house around the age of 13. I was trailing off to sleep and felt a cat jump onto my bed. (a very distinctive feeling for veteran cat owners) i looked up and said “here kitty kitty” and remembered we didn’t have a cat at that time. It happened several more times, but I was never freaked out about it. This was years before I experimented with drugs, and it brought a peace that I needed during those middle school years.
That’s cool. I’ve had a few. interesting experiences myself. 🙂
Me too. I felt my cat and dog jumping on the bed right after they died. I chose to think they wanted to hang out a bit longer before they made their journey.
This has happened to me, too. One last snuggle before crossing the Rainbow Bridge.
I already knew my fur babies and I will meet up again one day. I like you Pope Francis but until you ordain women, I ain’t coming back. Oh and stop closing the inner city churches because The Church is running out of money having had to empty the coffers to pay the victims of the abusers your institution condoned (yep, you guys kept looking the other way). Here’s a thought – sell one piece from your Vatican Musuem. Just one. Maybe then you can, like the Good Shepherd you’re supposed to be, take care of those most in need – like those folks in the inner cities of the world.
It makes me wonder if those involved will go to Heaven or to Hell.
or, you know, if they don’t care and are only be concerned about the here and now ($) because, you know, the later doesn’t matter.
U2 writes a lot of songs that really have Christian meanings to them or Bible references. Many just don’t know it. But U2 has out a new song on their album that I thought was so good, one of the best on the album, and I had no clue it was a song about a priest who is a pedophile until I read it somewhere. When I realized that, the title was chilling, Sleep Like a Baby Tonight, sung like a sinister lullaby, talking about the priest waking up in the morning to a calm breakfast, like everything is normal, while the abused, on the other hand, commits suicide. Very powerful. They even have an alternative version on the deluxe edition sung from the victim’s perspective.
Someone reviewed the song and made this observation about one part:
And this song articulates the tragedy. Especially in the 3rd stanza:
Hope is where the door is
When the church is where the war is
Where no one can feel no one else’s pain
“In just those 3 simple lines, Bono captures the total, obscene inversion of what the church should be. The door IN, not the door out, should be the gateway to hope. But, for abuse victims, church doors should be inscribed with Dante’s dark warning above Inferno’s entrance.
These are tragedies that must be aired – without that, hope and justice are impossible. But how disquieting to have that aired in a lullaby. It is shocking in the extreme.”
Sleep Like a Baby Tonight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwr6ILa56Ys
The photo of Angelina with Amy P is awesomely chilly.
that is def a “best lock up your [soulless? soulful?] puppies and kittens because i’m coming for them” stare.
So, all the bugs and spiders will be there too? :-p
and snakes…lots and lots of snakes.
In this case, I really really want to go to Heaven! 🙂
Im Jewish but I love this Pope. He is so down to Earth.
I genuinely believe that complex animals have souls.
What if Heaven is a place where we’re so full of love that we can let go of having our pets by our side? What about all those mommy and daddy cats, dogs and other pets that missed their babies when they were given to humans? I would want my Missy (RIP, my sweet, beautiful cat) to be just as happy and content as me.
I went to the original article sited and found this additional statement by the author:
“Theologians cautioned that Francis had spoken casually, not made a doctrinal statement.”
Pope Francis -per clerics I respect as a Catholic- has made many statements that are shall we say missleading. Additionally, his statements are taken out of context. For example, his statement,”who are we to judge,” regarding homosexuality was completely taken out of context. My point is, we really don’t know what Pope Francis said or intended. He is a very pastoral man, but he is also a Jesuit. Jesuits can give answers that are more cryptic than enlightening.
Anyway, having said all of the above,I am a cat lover and lost two of my cats in 2014. I read a great book called, Animals and the Afterlife, by Kim Sheridan that I highly recommend. In the book she states that St. Francis and St, Martin de Porres believed that animals had souls. Anyone who has experienced the joy of a companion animal would agree that this is true.
I LOVE this pope. (And I’m an atheist)
Great.
Now let’s stone those damn filthy gays to death!
and don’t forget hiding the pedo priests!
The Catholic Chirch teaches that gay people shoould be loved and respected. It’s in the Catholic doctrine. No stonning for us,
We condemn Bill Cosby yet exalt the figurehead of a system that hides decades of abuse and child molestation. That condemns gays and gay marriage.
Because he said dogs and cats go to heaven.
WTH?
I love animals, much more than people most days. But my heart goes to children who were abused at the hands of the church they trusted, and then the abuse was covered up.
/end rant
Yeah I don’t get the love for this guy. Like someone said above, the church is only going to change in baby steps and at least he is a step in the right direction? I believe animals have a “soul” in the sense that they are living, breathing creatures that feel pain and emotions and they all have that same “spark of life” that we all have inside us that keeps us ticking and, well, not dead. The convenient part about being an atheist is that I’m not in the least bit concerned with an afterlife. I truly believe we all rot in the ground and simply cease to exist when we die. I have absolutely no expectations of being reunited with anyone or anything after death, I’m more than content with the positive memories of the time I got to spend with them during this lifetime.
Being an atheist really forces you to appreciate every second of this wonderful yet baffling life, doesn’t it?
It does. But a larger question: Why do you keep switching from original kitten to extra strength kitten? I am confused.
You’re going to have to expand your feelings to just about every human organization, then. Anywhere adults can have private access to children, in fact, since such coverups have been standard probably since we crawled out of the ooze. Certainly other churches, schools, children’s organizations, doctors, and of course parents and other relatives are all part of it. The problem with priestly perverts in the RC church just looms large in many people’s minds because there are so many Catholics – half the world’s Christians, and at least 25% of people in the US. You find the same sad stories of abuse and coverup in other churches but they only seem more isolated because each church is thought of separately. Also media attention has been focused on the RC church, which is a major factor in public perception. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests are not child molesters and your children are safe with them, very likely much less at risk than at home with a pervy parent or mom’s pervy boyfriend.
yes, I do, if I find out the were complicit in covering up the abuse of children
there will NEVER be a free pass from me regarding this issue, and I cannot fathom otherwise.
Jwoolman:
Thank you for your informed post. As a Catholic, I have researched this issue. I am also a human service professional and have worked with victims over the years. Firstly, the Catholic Church has a centralized structure. Therefore, it keeps records and can deseminate accurate information. For those uniformed cranks that love to dogpile on the Church, try researching sexual abuse in other religious denomimations. You will have the initial problem of finding the information because of the lack of centralized structure in the Baptist, Jewish etc. faiths. Do you really think that Baptists, Jews or Muslims have less of an issue? People are people… think again.
Theologically speaking, I doubt Pope Francis believes non-human animals have souls, per se. Maybe be meant that all God’s creatures (who haven’t actively disqualified themselves) are represented in heaven as they are on earth. Most importantly, though, I think he was being kind to a little boy who was feeling sad and needed to feel God’s love in a way he could understand. And you know what? I’m pretty sure Jesus would be OK with that.
There’s this Patrick Wilson 6th Sense type movie where his dog who died when he was a child came to visit him one day. Turns out the dog is trying to help him come to terms with his death. I hope that when I die, I will be reunited with all my dead pets.
Hey Pope Francis, what’s our opinion on dancing monkeys or dancing otters? Do they go to heaven too?
What about the other animals?
The Vatican is saying the pope was misquoted.