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| Human dominion
over the natural world must not betaken 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. |
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By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --
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.'' |
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| 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?'' |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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The Reverend Professor Andrew Linzey, PhD, DD, is
an Anglican priest, a theologian, a writer, and is
internationally known as an authority on Christianity
and animals. |
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He is a member of the Faculty
of Theology in the University of Oxford, and holds the
world’s first academic post in Ethics, Theology
and Animal Welfare. |
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