Q: Genesis shows us that creation is a process.  Everything takes place step by step.  “It is not good”, God saw in the course of this process, “that man should be alone.  I will make him a helpmate for a partner.”  So next God made from the earth all the different animals of the field and all the birds of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.  A good opportunity, actually, to talk about animals, our closest companions.  Adam gave each of them a name.  Are we allowed to make use of animals, even to eat them?

A: That is a very serious question.  At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them.  Animals, too, are God’s creatures, and even if they do not have the same direct relation to God that man has, they are still creatures of his will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation and as important elements in the creation.

As far as whether we are allowed to kill and to eat animals, there is a remarkable ordering of matters in Holy Scripture.  We can read how, at first, only plants are mentioned as providing food for man.  Only after the flood, that is to say, after a new breach has opened between God and man, are we told that man eats flesh.  That is to say, a secondary way of ordering life is introduced, and it comes in second place in the story as we are told it.  Nonetheless, and even if someone feels hurt by our using animals in this way, we should not process from this to a kind of sectarian cult of animals.

For this, too, is permitted to man. He should always maintain his respect for these creatures, but he knows at the same time that he is not forbidden to take food from them. Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.

Q: Certainly, the animal world itself presents a strikingly brutal aspect of creation.  We all know how dear little kittens may, from one moment to the next, hunt down, torment, and kill others of their own kind.  The one that survives is the one that obviously has the greatest capability of destroying others.

A: It is in fact one of the great riddles of creation that there seems to be a law of brutality. The Catholic writer Reinhold Schneider, who himself was inclined to suffer from depression, exposed all the horrific elements in nature and in the animal world with the truly microscopic vision of someone who suffers himself. He let himself be brought by this to the point of despairing of God and of creation.

In her faith the Church has always seen it in this way: that the destructive effect of the Fall works itself out in the whole of creation. Creation no longer simply reflects the will of God; the whole thing is somehow distorted. We are confronted there by riddles. The dangers to which man is exposed are already made visible in the animal world.

 

I think that the majority of living Catholics have become very used to living with popes who have earned the cognomen “the Great,” and it is pretty shocking for us young’uns to realize that — except for times of great grace — the pope is pretty much just a bishop with a bigger audience.

I think that we learn whom to love as often by whom are enemies hate as whom our friends love. When our enemies fall in love with someone, it is not easy to regard the object of their affections without profound suspicion. This does not reflect well on us, however.

I think sometimes people fall in love despite the fact that it makes no sense at all. This can be at the prompting of grace. It is confusing for everyone — the lover, the loved, and everybody looking on. The lover, in particular, tries to explain the origins of her love in terms that make sense to herself, even though those terms are clearly and completely inapplicable. And those of us on the sidelines see those terms — nonsense terms like, “Finally, a pope who loves women!” “Thanks for being pro-choice, Pope Francis!” — and can’t understand why they didn’t love the theologically similar Pope Benedict the way we do. 

(But, then, I’m not certain I can explain quite why I love Papa Benny the way I do.)

I think churchmen should not, as a rule, speak extemporaneously urbi et orbi. EOTT, as always, says it best. We learned this in the aftermath of Vatican II; I would prefer not to have to learn it again.

I think we are at war not with the culture, but with the devil, who has many unwitting pawns at his disposal. It is worth trying to lure them away to our side with the right kinds of words, rather than trying to conquer them with unyielding arguments. It is worth remembering that Lucifer is smarter than all of us; we cannot out-argue the Enemy. The only thing we can do is out-love him. It will be interesting to see whether this newest effort bears any real fruit. Pope Francis is a better person than I am; he might just be on to something.

I think those who would destroy the Church have spent many years attacking it by opposing it, and they have noticed that this stopped working a couple decades ago. Realizing that Catholicism is resurgent everywhere, I think they are trying a new tactic: destroying the Church by enthusiastically misinterpreting it. (Or is that really a new tactic? It was the dominant Enemy strategy from the Council to Humanae Vitae.)

I think Pope Francis hails from a very different world than the Euro-American universe of encroaching secularism and weak-kneed pastoral leadership, and that, at least partly as a result, he misunderstands his flock as much as his flock misunderstands him. I hope that this is all straightened out soon, and (perhaps?) that the Pope Emeritus — probably the most broadly and deeply European pope in centuries — will have a few words of advice for the Pope when next they meet.

I think there’s much reason to be anxious, but little reason to be disappointed — and several reasons to be very happy.