The Church’s teaching regarding the lack of a spiritual soul of animals is clear. The Church’s teaching that only man is destined for Heaven is clear.
What about the prophecies that the lion will lie down with the lamb, etc.? Heaven will be a place, the new earth, on which we will exist with new bodies. Surely only we will participate in the beatific vision, but why won’t animals be there on the new earth, as they were there on the old earth, even before the fall?
The Church’s teaching that pets should not receive the affection due only to human persons is clear.
The idea that we “need” pets in Heaven or we “love our pets so much” that Heaven would not be complete without pets is to give pets affection due only to persons. It is disorderd.
You’re making the same mistakes Protestants make regarding Mary. Love is not a zero-sum game, and you can’t tell the kind of love by mere appearance. My wife loves our dog very much, and shows it. I have no doubt that she wants to see him in heaven. But that doesn’t mean that her love for our dog is
of the same kind as her love for me or any other human being. I know for a fact that she wouldn’t hesitate, if necessary, to put our dog down if he even posed a
danger to a human being. Her incredible devotion to our dog may seem to you to be “affection due only to persons,” but you’re not properly the judge of that, just like random Joe Protestant isn’t properly the judge of whether Joe Catholic’s devotion to Mary ascends to the cult of adoration due only to God.
Likewise, you seem to be making the mistake of believing that a great love for an animal somehow detracts from our ability to love people or to love God. Again, you’re making the same mistake that random Joe Protestant makes when he thinks that Joe Catholic’s devotion to Mary and the saints somehow detracts from his worship of God. It’s not a zero-sum game. My wife’s love for
our dog increases her love for me since he is something that we share together, and it certainly increases her love for God as any blessed gift from God does.
The beatific vision isn’t going to be a whole bunch of Catholics staring at God’s cosmic bellybutton for all of eternity. We won’t lose our personality or individuality when we enter into heaven. In fact, I think our personalities will only truly develop when we’re in heaven. Let me give you an example.
I love astronomy. I always have. NASA pictures excite me like little else does. I’ve rented “Contact” and skipped through all the “plot” just to watch the ending when Jodie Foster is flying through the galaxies in her alien bubble. Here on earth, however, I can’t really develop my love for astronomy–I don’t have the education I need to do work in astronomy, nor the focus necessary to receive such a specialized education. The closest I’m going to get to flying through the galaxies in an alien bubble, at least in this life, will be a nice telescope in my backyard.
In heaven, that will be different. In the beatific vision, I will be able to search deeper into astronomy than I ever would be able to in this life. I’ll see things that make NASA pictures look bland and “Contact” look like a comic book. How do I know this? Because “the heavens proclaim the glory of God.” God didn’t make the stars in the sky just to proclaim His glory for a few thousand years and then to disappear. He didn’t create our bodies just for our short sojourn here on earth: He created them for eternity. “Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the Sons of God.” In the beatific vision, I know I will be spending some serious time hearing the heavens proclaim the glory of God.
My wife, however, doesn’t love astronomy like I do. What she loves are animals. Animals of all sorts–she’s just over a year from getting her DVM. In heaven, I have no doubt that she will see in the beatific vision animals through whom she can perceive the invisible attributes of God more clearly than she could in this dark, earthly mirror of reality. If that’s the case, why shouldn’t those animals be the pets that she already loves?
Jeremy
