This Sunday, Catholic parishes from French-Acadian Louisiana to Boston and San Francisco shall witness the blessing of companion pets. Labradors, tabbies, even goldfish will all flinch and jump as they're blessed with holy water, in observance of the patron saint of animals.
But Saint Francis was more than an animal enthusiast. Many parishes will not really grasp the significance of Saint Francis' moment in history, beyond a tale of a kind mendicant who put birds at ease and lived simply. Are a majority of those Catholics going to be challenged for more than 2 seconds to take precious time for thinking of those who cannot speak, and people powerless in the cold?
This is not just a lesson for Catholics, Christians or even theists. Humans need interruption amidst the minutiae of calender days to reflect, to feel wonder, and to know discovery. What then, for those humans and other animals suffering hunger, torture, nakedness and deprivation?
Even in the midst of the Middle Ages there was a wealthy but apolitical class. During the 1180s, Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone--Francis--was born to a cloth merchant and Frenchwoman in northern Italy. The name Giovanni comes from the Italian for Jesus of Nazareth's cousin John the Baptist, a desert ascetic who preceded Jesus, subsisted on wildlife, and told of a reckoning at hand for the corrupt which led to his beheading by Herod Antipas. Over time this choice of patron--his mother's since Pietro di Bernadone was in France during Francis' birth--bore fruit. Throughout Fracis' young life, moments of alienation from the leisurely world enjoyed by his friends grated on him. His violent and choleric father Pietro had none of it, and berated him for donating money to a beggar. Time spent as a prisoner of war and another year reeling from disease fueled Francis' doubts about his place in the Kingdom of God. After a mystical vision in 1205, Francis began the process of becoming a mendicant. He was beaten by Pietro, turned on by his gambling and sporting friends, and considered an embarrassment in his hometown. But he rebuilt churches across Italy, made pilgrimages to Rome and later, the Holy Land, where he was granted a respectful royal audience with the Muslim leader.
In those days the religious class owned quite a bit of land and treasure and wielded power to boot. One form of enrichment for widespread groups like the Benedictines was accepting what amounted to dowries in exchange for admitting the daughters of the rich. Poor men and women who made it into these orders, however, would spend time cooking, cleaning and doing back-breaking work while the auspiciously-born "brothers" and "sisters" would sew and write. Indeed, for the wealthy and noble the life of a monk was not undesirable at this time.
Francis hammered away at this conception with his self-punishing lifestyle and enthusiasm for voluntary poverty. As his budding Order of Friars Minor too shape, he and his male followers were an affront to the fashion-forward and consuming people. They wore highly uncomfortable hair-clothing and admonished the wealthy, only counteracting their abrasiveness through a cheerful disposition and song.
However, St. Francis' concepts of animals and human place in the world were squarely orthodox, e.g. that all creatures ought to "praise God" in their routine lives. Though conventional then, this aspect of Christian theology is either absent or unheeded by laity today. Not just the idea that the forests and the animals are indeed following the plan of their creator (while man's instructed to subdue yet steward them) but that there is or ought to be a harmony of humans and animals. This is why Francis was known to preach to beasts and birds as well.
Today, many Christian groups praise the destruction of the eco-sphere as part of the neoliberal practice of making absent the earth's bounty and establishing a 1950's-tinged custom of suburban life (driving suburbans through them) as "God's plan" for all of eternity. That creation is simply meant to be subdued for the sake of domination, rather than for useful purpose. As the patron saint of the environment and fauna, St. Francis's life contradicts the appearance-focused, power-driven and pleasure-seeking modern practices of those who call themselves Christian. In fact, even the Franciscan order itself split continuously for 800 years over the question of how much simplicity is enough.
But we must remember that plant communities are the essential, immutable homes of many specific animals. Today, Laughing Planet covered the rapid extinction of Sumatran biota as the rainforests are converted to palm oil plantations--the yield of which winds up as the "vegetable oil" in foods such packaged meats, soups, pasta and household goods. Every tree is a home. Many of us have lived next to creatures unseen and unheard of our entire lives.
And on the subject of poverty: how many routinely go without something seriously meaningful by choice and not considerations for budget? Whether it's Friday fasting as Catholics no longer follow, or going without another good or service like a car for one day a week? How many aren't caught on the slippery slope of saying they "need" what amounts to a massive sum of "stuff", under the excuse that they're only middle class and very much hammered by debt?
As for the poor Francis tended to, it's one thing to elect a life of simplicity, and another to be forced into vagrancy. Ultimately for many, the latter ends in disease whether mental or physical, addiction to numb the drudgery, and soul-crushing loneliness--not necessarily in that order. That Francis tended to lepers, touching and caring for the infectious and stinking ragged is continued by those who work at homeless shelters for little, if any pay, and take on the risks associated. Francis didn't need to become a missionary. The materially or spiritually needy presented themselves everywhere as they do today.
The abuse, abandonment and feral reproduction of dogs, cats and other domestic species reached historic levels during our Great Recession. There's still a multitude of pets lost from Hurricane Katrina, too. Whether it's two hours at an animal shelter one day a week, or adopting another dog, spaying your cat, or clearing ivy or kudzu from some animal or bird's home in a park, there's so many ways to help reduce the lonely and cruel existence of animals on the streets and in the wild.
Today, we humor ourselves with the notion that our democracy made the world good. But the system that never changes is having for the few (us) at the expense of many. According to Nigerians, our oil-obtaining methods in the Delta threaten a "revolution" in the near future, as fisherman have no kill, the air chokes all, kidnappings and slayings happen routinely and millions live atop meters of refuse and feces. In order for government to actually fix these problems, how can we assume we've earned our consumer goods fairly, while others have not earned clean air, clothing, (non-toxic) food and their heritage? Coming to the realization that the last few parcels of virgin forest and savannah fulfill and preserve us requires action to sustain it. And no person is a piece of garbage. Why then do we act otherwise?