1. St. Paul and Aristotle
• St. Paul was a Jew, a Greek, and a Roman:
• his Hebrew name was “Shaul”
• his Greek name in the New Testament is “Saul” (Greek has no “sh” sound)
• he was born in Tarsus, a Greek city on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey
• received a Jewish education in Jerusalem, as he claims; he was a Pharisee
• Paul writes fluid, sophisticated Greek and displays impressive knowledge of Greek philosophy and culture
• he was a Roman citizen by birth, a privilege granted to only those Jewish men and their descendants who performed some important service for the Roman Empire
• scholars believe that Paul was born into the small Jewish aristocracy who ran the Temple and collaborated with the Romans, helping to govern Israel on their behalf
• he first appears in Acts as an agent of the High Priest whose job is to investigate and prosecute the followers of Jesus. He was not taught by Jesus as the disciples were, and he blended, on his own, Greek philosophy and conservative Judaism (he emphasizes this in Galatians)
• his rich and complex personal history helps to explain why much in his teaching does not reflect the authentic spirit of Judaism and Christianity as expressed in the two great commandments: his comments on women, slavery, obedience to tyrannical governments, and animals
• Regarding animals, Paul follows Aristotle who wrote: “If nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain [which is an axiom of Aristotelian philosophy], all animals must have been made by nature for the sake of man.” Aristotle assumes here that because something is, it is right. This is always an attractive notion to those who have authority, power, and position because it justifies their hierarchy of privilege. Aristotle also taught that slaves exist to serve free men, women to serve men, barbarians to serve Greeks, and subjects to serve their rulers.
• These positions are opposed to the ones taught by Jesus and his Gospel of mercy.
• Aristotle’s moral hierarchy has been overturned. No Christian today would use it to defend slavery, sexism, or claim that cruel and ruthless rulers like Hitler and Stalin were God’s revenge on sinners, as Paul contended.
• Only the exploitation of animals remains. It is time to discard this last vestige of Aristotle’s discredited theory.
• In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul clearly expresses the primacy of love (“the greatest of these is love”). He got the fundamental principle exactly right, even as his background and his mission kept him from seeing how that principle applies to women, slaves, homosexuals, victims of tyranny, and animals.
2. St. Augustine
• Following Paul, Augustine accepted Aristotle’s hierarchy and gave it a Christian interpretation: “A human being is a major kind of thing, being made ‘in the image and likeness of God’ [Genesis 1:26-27] not by virtue of having a mortal body but by virtue of having a rational soul, and has thus a higher status than animals.”
• This led him to conclude that we have no direct moral duties to animals, as he explains in his masterpiece, The City of God: “When we read, ‘you shall not kill,’ we assume that this does not refer to bushes, which have no feelings, nor to irrational creatures, flying, swimming, walking, or crawling, since they have no rational association with us, not having been endowed with reason as we are, and hence it is by a just arrangement of the Creator that their life and death is subordinated to our needs.”
3. Medieval Theologians
• No medieval theologian expressed any doubts about our right to enslave and slaughter animals.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas
• The most important of the medieval theologians was Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), who remains to this day the pre-eminent philosopher of the Catholic Church. His great contribution was a comprehensive synthesis of Christian doctrine and the philosophy of Aristotle.
• Aquinas accepted Aristotle’s hierarchy of souls, ignoring the inconvenient fact that the Bible describes only one kind of soul, the “living soul” shared by humans and animals, but not plants. He cites with approval Augustine’s notion that moral duties depend upon “fellowship,” which in turn depends upon reason—a notion that derives from Aristotle and the Stoics, not from Judaism or Jesus.
• But Aquinas was aware of the numerous passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that command us to treat animals with respect and compassion. He has a ready answer: “God’s purpose in recommending kind treatment of the brute creation is to dispose men to pity and tenderness toward one another.”
• Aquinas concludes that it is legitimate to love animals, provided that this love is really a way of expressing thanks to God for placing animals here so that we can eat their flesh, drink their milk, wear their skins, and so on. We may not, however, love animals for their own sake, and in no way should we allow our love for animals to interfere with their enslavement and abuse for the satisfaction of human desires.
5. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
• The Catechism constitutes the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on faith and morals. While it is possible to find individual Catholic figures, even saints, bishops, and teachers, who have historically said or done things favorable to animals, they do not necessarily represent the “official” line. But only that which conforms to the teaching authority (magisterium) of the Catholic Church truly—and “officially—represents authentic Catholic teaching—hence, the importance of the Catechism. It constitutes the official Catholic position on a wide range of theological and ethical issues, including the official position on animals.
• The section on animals is actually quite small: only four paragraphs. Located within overall discussion of the seventh commandment, it is titled “Respect for the Integrity of Creation” and reads as follows:
The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals,like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present and future humanity. Use of the mineral, vegetable and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.
• There is no suggestion that it is wrong in itself to use sentient beings because they can be harmed or violated. This paragraph retains a strongly instrumentalist view of creation.
Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.
• This paragraph contains the most positive theology of all about animals and constitutes an advance in Catholic thinking. For the first time animals are included within the sphere of direct moral duty.
God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals, if it remains within reasonable limits, is a morally acceptable practice since it contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
• Despite the previously implied view that animals have an independent value because of their worth to God, this paragraph endorses our current use of animals in many key respects. It is not wrong to cause animals to suffer and die because such activity harms the animals themselves and is therefore an offense to God. No; it is wrong solely because it is an affront to human dignity. It is “needless” when it is divorced from human benefit, gain, or advantage. This one line alone justifies almost all we currently to do animals, save perhaps hideous cruelty perpetrated by the deranged.
It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals: one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.
• In practice, this would mean that we shouldn’t spend any money on them until all human misery has been eradicated.
This is what these four paragraphs are saying: Animals don’t really matter in themselves. Don’t waste precious human resources on them. Love them if you must, but not too much. The Catechism reaffirms the earlier Scholastic view that affection for animals is disordered or disproportionate, especially if it in any way approximates the intensity of love between humans. It also arguably reaffirms that friendship is also only possible between humans, since animals are not, according to traditional Catholic thinking, “persons.” In its teaching on animals, the Catechism reaffirms a ruthless and dogmatic humanocentrism. This is a serious matter because the power of the Catholic Church is immense in the world today, and it here lends its power to major social institutions that hold anti-progressive views on animals and commit some of the most egregious moral abuses of animals in our world. The Catechism represents a major moral victory for those who want to exploit animals. As a precursor to emancipating animals from the suffering we cause them, some of us will have to emancipate the churches from their unchristian attitudes. As Martin Buber once said: “Nothing is apt to mask the face of god so much as religion.”