Re Animal blessings and forensic research:
The June 16 News had some beautiful pictures of the blessing for the critters (also known as “pets”).
Animals have such value in people’s lives, some even go to the extent of having them blessed. It’s wonderful that people go to this length for their pets.
What about how we treat the animals who aren’t our pets? Are they not worthy of being blessed? I wonder what St. Francis of Assisi’s original standard was regarding animals. Surely, as a saint, he would value all creatures equally.
There is a shocking contrast between the blessing of the critters and the dead pig depicted on page 5. Three little pigs and a big bad wolf were killed for an experiment to see how animals decompose in the North.
Too bad this wasn’t just a fairy tale.
Why would we accept this, when people would be horrified to learn about pets being used in this way? We are permitted and encouraged to kill animals that we don’t have a personal attachment to, and we can even do this for an experiment.
Imagine how people would react if there was a news story about researchers who took several healthy dogs from the humane society and killed them to see how they decomposed.
I would like to thank the News for reporting where the pigs and wolf came from. CBC’s reporting (in my opinion) deliberately avoided this question.
Their online story just talked about the animals like they were objects, instead of who they are, sentient beings, which have their own interest, free from our interest.
We all need to think about how we treat animals, and why we think of some animals as special, and others as disposable. If any animals deserve blessings, they all do (especially those that aren’t being well cared for).
Mike Grieco
Whitehorse