Our Team, and KC's Blogs...
I found myself looking back at some of the crazy and disturbing things we were taught in Catholic school back in the early 60s. For example, the nuns told us kids that animals didn't have souls and therefore didn't go to heaven.
I don't know if this was ever official Church teaching or just something the nuns dreamed up. Fortunately, Pope John Paul II was more enlightened.
In 1990 he told an audience: "the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren", all animals are the 'fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect', and animals should be considered 'as near to God as men are'.
Cats have feelings, they communicate, they are sensitive to the moods and feelings of others, they give love abundantly, without judgement. They are part of our family.
If animals didn't have souls and didn't go to Heaven, then it wouldn't be Heaven for me. If I died and found the nuns were in Heaven and the cats weren't, I'd have to reconsider my options.
