by ROBERT POGUE HARRISON
Francisco de Zurbarán: Agnus Dei, 1635-1640 Museo del Prado, Madrid
Whether or not one believes that the Judeo-Christian God exists, there is much to ponder in what Pope Francis reportedly told a distraught boy whose dog had died. According to The New York Times, Francis assured him that he would be reunited with his pet “in the eternity of Christ” and—in the spirit of his papal namesake—declared that “Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.”* Since we are a society that loves our dogs as much as we love God, the American media focused almost exclusively on the statement’s implications for canine pets; but a broader, far darker import lurks at the heart of the Pope’s words.
The Pope spoke not of dogs but of all of God’s creatures. Where does that leave humankind? To call us a species among others is both correct and misleading, for whether by divine design or nature’s random ways, Homo sapiens has extended its dominion over everything that walks, crawls, swims, or flies. This makes us a singular, unearthly kind of creature. From the extinctions we cause, to the alteration and destruction of animal habitats, to the daily mass slaughters that feed our collective Cerberus-like appetite for meat, poultry, and fish, our species terrorizes the animal world in ways that could only offend, if not outrage, a God who loves his creatures enough to open the prospect of heaven to them.
The New York Review of Books for more