I’ll never forget my first “blessing of the animals” service. It was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi a few years before Laudato Si’ appeared. A few blocks from my downtown Chicago office, I stepped into a grand, gothic-style church only to find its usually serene and stately narthex bustling with noise and movement, more like a busy veterinary waiting room than a sacred space. Owners with pets of all shapes, sizes, and species stood milling about or lining up to process inside.
During the service, leashes shook and carriers jangled during prayers. Barks and meows echoed through the nave of the church between hymns. But what was most surprising was the feeling that something was so fitting about it all—that even though it was a rare thing to invite animals in, they always belonged there, somehow. As the priest knelt down to bless a small schnauzer, I remember feeling in a new way that these creatures were God’s too, and they were just as much in need of God’s blessing as we furless, featherless, scaleless animals who more commonly populate the pews.
The Vocabulary of Creation in Laudato Si’
Just as animals are mainly absent from churches, so too have they been absent from most areas of theology—at least until recently.