Catechism 'will add to

cruelty to animals'
BY ANGUS MACDONALD
BarrAna's ONLY theologian on animal issues has attacked the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, whose English translation was published last week, as "morally backward" in its understanding of the status of animals, and says it is likely to "perpetuate cruelty".
Rev Professor Andrew Linzey of Mansfield College, Oxford, who holds the world's first academic post in Theology and Animal Welfare, says the Catechism's -insistence on placing human "above animal welfare is a "terrible mistake".
Its perpetuation of "the old view" that God destined all material creatures for the good of the human race was a "speciesist theology in which the welfare of all other creatures continues to be subordinated to human ends, no matter how trivial", Professor Linzey said.
"It is galling to see the latest official Catholic teaching endorsing the very view which perpetuates worldwide cruelty," he added.
The 600-page English language Catechism which had been delayed for over a year because of a dispute over
non-sexist language was finally published last week by Geoffrey Chapman. It is intended as a comprehensive statement of the Church's doctrines and comes with the Pope's personal seal of approval.
Mrs May Bocking, Honorary Secretary of the Catholic Study Circle for Animal Welfare, said she agreed with Professor Linzey. She was "really terribly disappointed" by the sections on animals, she said.
"It says you shouldn't spend money on animals which could be spent on people. Well, you shouldn't spend money on fast cars or foreign holidays either, but it doesn't mention those!" Mrs Bocking told the Catholic Herald.
Professor Linzey, an Anglican priest and academic who is the first incumbent of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) senior research fellowship at Oxford, argued in a recent article in the Catholic Herald that an 1842 Oxford sermon by Cardinal John Henry Newman identified Christ's suffering on the Cross with the suffering of innocent animals.