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This sure sounds like a shift in church doctrine, but I'm not so sure:
Pope Francis Animals go to heaven - FOX 32 News Chicago
Here's a pretty good site that makes some thought-provoking points:
Do animals go to Heaven Bibleinfo.com
Here is a link that references the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue:
Pets in Heaven
This is the reason they give:
What say you?
Pope Francis Animals go to heaven - FOX 32 News Chicago
During his weekly address in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis comforted a young boy who was distraught over the recent death of his dog by telling him, "One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ," the 77-year leader of the Roman Catholic Church said, according to Time. "Paradise is open to all of God's creatures."
The statement by the pope was welcomed by animal rights groups and humane societies across the globe, who see it as a repudiation of traditional Catholic teaching dating back hundreds of years that holds that animals can't go to heaven because they have no souls.
"My inbox got flooded," Christine Gutleben, senior director of faith outreach at the Humane Society, the largest animal protection group in the United States, told the New York Times. "Almost immediately, everybody was talking about it."
Some Catholic scholars, however, have warned that the Pope's comment was made casually and should not be taken as official Church doctrine. Others point to earlier comments that seem to suggest that Pope Francis has long held beliefs that animals can go to heaven.
Here's a pretty good site that makes some thought-provoking points:
Do animals go to Heaven Bibleinfo.com
Here is a link that references the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue:
Pets in Heaven
This is the reason they give:
One principle is that all living things have a soul. Here soul is defined as what makes an organic body live. Now when any living thing dies, its soul is separated from its body. In the case of plants and animals the soul goes out of existence. But in the case of man, the soul remains in existence because it is a spiritual or immaterial thing. Consequently, it differs from the souls of animals in two important respects. First, it is the seat of intelligence or reason. For this reason a man is held responsible for his actions in a way that animals are not. Secondly, the soul is immortal. A thing which has no physical parts cannot fall apart or be poisoned or be crushed or be put out of existence. For this reason the souls of the saved will always be aware of themselves as enjoying the vision of God for all eternity. This enjoyment will be the result of having chosen to act on earth in such a way that one did the will of God rather than one's own will. And the souls of the damned will be aware of themselves as never attaining this vision of God because they have shown by their lives on earth that they did not wish this vision but instead preferred their own will.
In the light of this essential difference between human beings and animals, it would seem that we would not see the souls of our pets in heaven for the simple reason that they do not have immortal souls and are not responsible for their actions. They do not have the intelligence which allows them to choose either God's will or their own will. There is, then, an incomparable distance, say, between the soul of the sorriest human being who ever lived and the most noble brute animal that ever walked the earth.
Now a child might be heartbroken at the thought that he will never see his pet again. He cannot yet understand this explanation about the difference between the human and the animal soul. I suppose that one could tell the child that when he hopefully gets to heaven, he could ask God to see his old pets if he still wished to. There would be no harm in that. For we know that when a person finally sees God, he will not be concerned with seeing old pets or favorite places but rather will be captured in the complete fulfillment of the joy of which old pets and favorite places are but little signs. We adults know that, even if the child does not.
What say you?