Bless those cats

Loki and Muldoon, my two handsome and sophisticated cats, more or less share with me in the organization and running of our household. Not that they actually dictate terms to me, of course, or remind me when to change my shirt or mow the lawn. Nor have they sufficient manual dexterity to write out shopping lists or throw my clothes out the window when I come home late at night.

In other words, my relationship with them falls somewhat short of marital bliss. But neither are they helpless and innocent toddlers, wholly dependent on my whims for their continued survival. Aside from their small size, excessive fuzziness, and blissful silence, they are more like a couple of pre-teens. Junior partners within the household, certainly, but fully capable of expressing and enforcing their wishes.

Theologians tell us that animals -- even cats -- do not possess immortal souls (although a USA Today poll last May showed that 81 percent of responding readers believed that "good pets go to heaven"). These learned scholars maintain that animals are merely part of the furniture that we've been provided for our greater comfort here on earth, along with trees, brooks and amber waves of grain. Unlike most pet owners, I'll reluctantly go along with the "immortal" part of the equation, but to assert that my pets possess no souls at all suggests that they are automatons -- little machines responding mechanically to stimuli according to embedded programs.

If my cat -- who looks longingly at me with soulful eyes -- is merely an automaton, how do I know that my fellow humans -- Republicans, especially -- are any different? Theologians, whose intelligence is far subtler than mine, have thought through all of this, no doubt, because they agree that cats and dogs do have souls -- just not immortal souls. (Do goldfish then have souls? Ants? Bacteria? Viruses? Computer programs? Shut up! You're making my head hurt.)

My mind races today in these peculiar channels, because I see that churches are already giving advance notice of services for "the blessing of animals" on October 4, the day commemorating St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of many of the better things in life -- animals, certainly, and also the environment, Italy, San Francisco, and stowaways. I've never attended such a service, but I understand that people bring animals of every description to the church to be blessed. During inclement weather, the animals may actually be brought into the church itself.

The prescribed prayers are rather dry -- they ask God to grant that "these animals may serve our needs and that your bounty in the resources of this life may move us to seek more confidently the goal of eternal life." The prayers thus seem carefully designed to avoid the slightest suggestion that the animals, once blessed, will one day join us in Heaven. More disturbing, the prayers don't even petition that the poor animals be granted happiness during their short time with us on earth. The church's concern is all for the welfare of the human owners. The blessing might as well be for the continued high performance of the parishioners' BMWs and Porsches.

But whatever the official theological objective of sprinkling holy water on the tiny heads of kittens and puppies, I suspect the great majority of pet owners are themselves praying that their four-legged companions be granted long life and the greatest happiness of which their strictly mortal souls are capable -- not for the sake of their human owners, but for the sake of the animals themselves. As an understanding Franciscan writer -- displaying more of the spirit of St. Francis than does, perhaps, the dry language of the official liturgy -- comments:

As the prayer is offered, the pet is gently sprinkled with holy water. Believe it or not, most pets receive this sacramental spritz with dignity, though I must admit I have seen some cats flatten their ears a bit as the drops of water lightly pelt them.

But the owner is happy, and who knows what spiritual benefits may result?

I believe every creature is important. The love we give to a pet, and receive from a pet, can draw us more deeply into the larger circle of life, into the wonder of our common relationship to our Creator.

Exactly! It's a nice ritual. I'd take Loki and Muldoon to be blessed, but they refuse to be spritzed by any church that deems them inferior to humans.

And I, in turn, refuse their pleas to be taken to Wiccan rituals. It's a standoff. We'll just have to continue living together without benefit of clergy.