Vatican
official calls for more just relationship
with animals
John Thavis
Catholic News Service
Dec. 2000
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Human dominion
over the natural world must not be taken
as an unqualified license to kill or
inflict suffering on animals, a Vatican
official said.
The cramped and cruel methods used in
the modern food industry, for example,
may cross the line of morally acceptable
treatment of > animals, the official
said in an article Dec. 7 in the Vatican
newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
The
article, titled ``For a More Just Relationship
With Animals,'' was written by Marie
Hendrickx, a longtime official of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith.
She
said that in view of the growing popularity
of animal rights movements, the church
needs to ask itself to what extent Christ's
dictum, ``Do to others whatever you
would have them do to you'' can be applied
to the animal world.
The
``Catechism of the Catholic Church''
says it is legitimate for humans to
use animals for food and clothing, and
to domesticate them for work or leisure.
But Hendrickx pointed out that a small
but significant change in wording was
made between the catechism's first edition
and its official Latin edition on use
of animals for medical experimentation.
Such experiments are now called morally
acceptable only if they contribute to
caring for or saving human lives.
Moreover, the catechism says that in
general it is ``contrary to human dignity
to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.''
Hendrickx
said the question today is whether ``the
right to use animals to feed oneself
implies raising chicken in cages that
are each smaller than a notebook.''
``Or raising calves in boxes where they
cannot move or see the light of day?
Or pinning down sows with iron rings
into a nursing position so that piglets
can suck the milk without ever stopping,
and thus grow faster?'' she said.
Likewise,
she questioned whether the right to
dress oneself with animal skins meant
it was morally acceptable to let fur-bearing
creatures die slowly in traps from hunger,
cold or bleeding.
Hendrickx
also questioned treatment of animals
in traditional spectacles that have
survived into the modern age, like bull-fighting
or ``throwing cats or goats off a bell-tower.''
She was referring to the tradition in
a Spanish town of tossing a goat from
a 50-foot bell tower into a piece of
tarpaulin, to mark the beginning of
the festival of St. Vincent, the town's
patron saint. The town gave up the practice
earlier this year after years of protest
from animal rights groups.
She said that spectacles involving cruelty
to animals are sometimes justified as
``cathartic'' acts that release collective
aggression. But experience shows the
opposite is true: where brutal spectacles
are popular, aggression only seems to
increase, she said.
Hendrickx
said that in applying church teaching,
Catholics should remember that causing
suffering to animals should be avoided
unless there are serious reasons to
do so. Feeding oneself or one's family
is a legitimate reason, but the sole
motive of profit is not, she said.
