A dog saint?

  • Thread starter Thread starter holdencaulfield
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
It’s clear that this went on not BECAUSE of the teaching of the Church, BUT IN SPITE OF IT.
 
What a sad story. The poor dog, so faithful to his owners. At least the child lived and was unharmed. I’m sure he is not a canonised saint like others were named saints in their local community, but I’m sure he is in Heaven!! 😉
 
This is probably the most bizarre thing I’ve read in a long time!

Good dog though. Dogs do not have immortal souls. Yet whatever God has cooked up for us, who is to say it does not involve our pets.
 
St. Christopher in some Eastern iconography appears with the head of a dog–I think it’s because he was ugly 🤷
 
I’ve heard of a saint for dogs (St. Roch or St. Rocco) but not a dog saint. I focused on the words “local veneration” and “repeated prohibitions by the Church” to help me understand. This was based on the emotions of the people of a community not approved by the Church. Also folks, this was the 13th century. We don’t worship our animals anymore.:bowdown:
 
mschrank said:
This is probably the most bizarre thing I’ve read in a long time!

Good dog though. Dogs do not have immortal souls. Yet whatever God has cooked up for us, who is to say it does not involve our pets.
Click to expand...
Yes quite true.
 
Quaere_Verum said:
I’ve heard of a saint for dogs (St. Roch or St. Rocco) but not a dog saint. I focused on the words “local veneration” and “repeated prohibitions by the Church” to help me understand. This was based on the emotions of the people of a community not approved by the Church. Also folks, this was the 13th century. We don’t worship our animals anymore.:bowdown:
Click to expand...
Hey don’t knock the 13th century, it produced many saints and was pretty much the height of Catholic/Western glory.
 
The legend’s a pretty common one in Indo-European areas. Gelert is the Welsh version, and you can still visit Bedd Gelert.

Other than the whole issue of not being a historically real critter… if you take “Saint” as just meaning “Holy” and not an actual saint…
there’s no reason why people couldn’t honor a dog for holiness. Not if they could honor the Tree of the Cross or the Burning Bush, or a holy well or spring, or the holy River Jordan, or the various holy mountains. Or Balaam’s holy donkey or the Lord’s holy donkey, for that matter, or St. Francis’ holy wolf. Or the original St. Bernards of the icy pass, dedicated from birth to God’s service and the rescue of man.

The issue is whether people were honoring the dog in a fitting way (apparently not) that didn’t mislead people as to what they were doing (and apparently it was very misleading).
 
kleary said:
“The cult of this dog saint persisted for several decades, until the 1930s, despite the repeated prohibitions of the Catholic Church.”

That expresses it totally. Hope you are not an anti-Catholic here to fight with such fallicy.

Ken
Click to expand...
Oh no, I’m not anti-Catholic; in fact I’m taking the RCIA this year. I’m very much so Catholic, I was just wondering what other people thought about this.
 
Poor dog…

I mean, he shouldn’t be venerated as a saint, because he isn’t one, but I do feel bad that he was killed like that. 😦
 
Dogs already have a patron saint, by the way: St. Roch.

Also plague-sufferers and, in medieval Poland, people under attack by vampires.

That’s why I named the order that hunts vampires, in a novel I’ve nearly finished, Roccans.

They’re also charged with matters pertaining to werewolves, pursuant to the Treaty of Gubbio.:cool:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top