All God's Animals: A Catholic Theological Framework for Animal Ethics

Early in his book, US-American Jesuit and Georgetown professor Christopher Steck recounts a revealing episode about the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales. A good many years ago, they received a proposal for liturgical prayers for animals. They rejected it arguing that "animals may well have souls, but they are not immortal souls" (p. 9). Their episcopal counterparts in the United States did not cut a better figure. When they published a Book of Blessings in 1989, they indeed included animal blessings. Yet, according to Steck, these blessings for animals "do not evidence any direct concern for their happiness or well-being; rather they only petition God that the animals serve us well" (p. 174). Moreover, the bishops' collection also provided a blessing for fishing gear. No kidding.Steck does not mention if any prayers over hunting rifles were included in the Book of Blessings. However, at the very time when I started writing this review, the online newspaper Crux reported that Alessio Biagioni, a Catholic priest in Italy's region of Tuscany, had announced plans to bless guns after Sunday Mass on September 3, 2023, in celebration of the new hunting season.I doubt that the blessing of fishing gear suggested by the US bishops in 1989 elicited a huge controversy back then. The welfare of animals was a matter that Catholics were hardly concerned with three and a half decades ago. Moreover, up to the present, fishing has tended to have a more favorable image than hunting in the public perception. By contrast, Father Biagioni's announcement of the blessing of hunting guns in September 2023 swiftly elicited a backlash of critical comments on social media. "This flies in the face of Laudato si'," one post read, referring to Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical on the care of God's creation and God's creatures. Indeed, the diocese in charge felt obliged to issue a statement containing an apology from Biagioni. To coin a phrase, Tuscany's "shotgun priest" admitted that his initiative was ill-conceived and might be interpreted as sanctifying instruments of death.Do adverse reactions to Father Biagioni's announcement and his apology suggest that contemporary Catholics have a more compassionate and respectful attitude toward animals than their ancestors? Does the appeal to Pope Francis's Laudato si' voiced by one of Biagioni's critics indicate that there has been some kind of change in the attitude toward animals, both in the magisterium's teaching and the laity's understanding, both in Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular?Steck answers this question in the affirmative: "Christian attitudes toward animals . . . have changed significantly over the last several decades" (p. 41). Among other things, the author conclusively shows that the present pope "explicitly rejects the view that the ultimate purpose of creatures is found in human need" (p. 206). He points out that Laudato si' contends that both the redemption and the resurrection "will include nonhuman creatures" (p. 114). Steck argues that God established a covenant with all creation, not just humankind (the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9:8–17) and that at least some individual nonhuman creatures, in particular animals with a subject-identity that endures across time, will have an eschatological destiny.Throughout the book, the "already and not yet" of God's kingdom plays a prominent role. Steck emphasizes that "through word and deed, Christ inaugurated the kingdom of God in human history" (pp. 171–172), although its fullness will appear only at the end of time ("eschatological reserve"). According to Steck, the ideals of the eschaton (nonviolence, hospitality, justice, reconciliation) are relevant for our temporal existence and for contemporary ethics. Yet the conversion of eschatological ideals into specific ethical norms is rather tricky and imperiled by human sin and brokenness.By now the reader of this review has learned some of the preeminent arguments of Steck's project to create a theological framework for animal ethics. But the reader still is uninformed about the structure of the book. It's high time to catch up on it. The book comprises acknowledgments, an introduction, five chapters, a bibliography, and an index. Chapter 1 discusses historical Catholic attitudes toward animals. The predominant tradition relied heavily on Thomas Aquinas's assumption that "there are no duties to animals, animals are created to serve humanity, and cruelty to animals is sinful not because it violates animals but because it violates the agent's character" (p. 19). Therefore, vivisection did not pose a problem for most moral theologians. Steck also lists a number of animal-friendly Catholics and outlines positive contemporary developments. Yet he is not overly optimistic. The existence of slaughterhouses, "places of misery for animal and worker alike" (p. 43), poses the question "whether the existence of such systems is a symptom of an enduring animal myopia still impairing our cultural and even religious imaginations" (p. 44).Chapter 2 speaks up for a theological reinterpretation of animals. Steck transcends traditional exegesis of the dominion mandate and the biblical metaphor imago dei (the human being as the image of God) into the concepts of human stewardship and "servant anthropocentrism" (p. 86), which assign a special ministerial role for human persons. The author admits that findings of contemporary science "make it difficult to sustain the absoluteness of the distinction between humans and all other creatures" (p. 68).Central for Chapter 3 is the eschatological hope for each and every creature including animals, at least those with distinctive personalities (e.g., dogs, cats, elephants, great apes, and dolphins). All creatures, Steck argues, are bound together in a fundamental solidarity. The Jesuit makes a case for nonhuman redemption or "sanctification" by appealing to the theology of creation ("theo-drama") developed by the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.Chapter 4 pursues Balthasar's work by introducing his trinitarian theology. Steck is convinced that Balthasar's oeuvre provides a foundation for including nonhuman creatures in the cosmic salvation. The Jesuit is adamant that "nonhuman creatures are part of the cosmic drama, genuine objects of God's creative and redemptive care" (p. 171).Chapter 5 is the final chapter. Its aim is to identify the ethical implications of Steck's animal-friendly theological concept. The author describes three tensions: the tension between the present order and the ideals of God's kingdom, the tension between the ecclesial proclamation of a theology inclusive of all creatures and conventional social norms, and the tension between general norms and the personal charisma of the individual Christian. At the very end, the author discusses two controversial cases: eating meat from factory farms and using animals for experiments.All God's Animals is a book worth reading. It presents a lot of valuable information on the Catholic perception of animals over time. On the basis of profound but sometimes tedious theological arguments, it speaks up for a heaven that is not closed to animals. This is quite an achievement. What is lacking in Steck's treatise, though, is consistency, or, to put it differently, ethical norms that adequately reflect the theological concepts. In particular, the final chapter, which deals with animal ethics, is rather disappointing. To take one example, according to Steck, "it is acceptable for Christians to eat meat" (p. 194). Vegetarianism—Steck does not even mention veganism in his book—is reserved for the kingdom of God. At the most, he suggests that abstaining from eating animals (even if their flesh is "humanely" produced) is a personal vocation for exceptional Christians.In closing, let me confront Steck's strangely outdated position with Stephen R. L. Clark's fierce moral opposition to an omnivore or carnivore diet, which he expressed as far back as 1977. In his book The Moral Status of Animals, the British philosopher labeled flesh-eating in our present circumstances as an "empty gluttony" and concluded: "Those who still eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious moralists" (Clark, 1977, p. 183).Clark does not mince his words. Steck, alas, does.