The Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is the Christian Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI.  

Number of Members: 66 million.

Governing Body: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops consists of bishops and archbishops.  

Statement 1

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI):

Cardinal Ratzinger (CR) was asked the following question by the German journalist, Peter Seewald: Are we allowed to make use of animals, and even to eat them?

CR: “That is a very serious question. At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God’s creatures and even if they do not have the same direct relation to God that man has, they are creatures of his will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation … Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald.  (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 78-79. 

Statement 2

Pope John Paul II:

In 1990, in front of a public audience at the Vatican:

“animals posses a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren.” 

“animals are the fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect … they are as near to God as men are.”  

Statement 3

Catholic Catechism (official teachings of the Catholic Church):

Paragraph 2416: “Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals … It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.”

Statement 4

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 2003 Agricultural Pastoral: "For I Was Hungry and You Gave Me Food" fourth section: A Catholic Agenda for Action: Pursuing a More Just Agricultural System; subsection V: Stewardship of Creation states:

"Catholic teaching about the stewardship of creation leads us to question certain farming practices, such as the operation of massive confined animal feeding operations. We believe that these operations should be carefully regulated and monitored so that environmental risks are minimized and animals are treated as creatures of God."