Editorial

Fr Dionysius Mintoff, director of the John XXIII Peace Laboratory, last week wrote an article about the power of the evergreen saint, Francis of Assisi.

Among other things, one of St Francis's greatest and most impressionable attributes was his love for God's creation. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, made into a film in the 1970s by Franco Zeffirelli, epitomises the Canticle of the Sun, a moving, eternally youthful paean to the splendour and perfection of God and his creation.

Because of this, St Francis has come to be associated with man's relationship with the animal world, especially dogs and birds.

In other religions, like Hinduism and Buddhism, the possibility of reincarnation makes vegetarians out of the various higher sects. We in the west have taken a rather different view of the animal world.

While watching a documentary about wildlife in the various continents one cannot but be fascinated by the perfection of nature and its almost preordained exactness.

However, it is the domestic animals headed by man's best friend, the dog, that are part and parcel of our daily lives. It is our attitude to them that reflects the level of our civilisation.

While for the most part domestic pets are well treated especially if they have a family tree that would make a Bourbon blush, it is the mutts that really must face the luck of the draw.

There are the lucky ones that even should they look like the product of Heinz 57 Varieties find themselves in a loving home; and then there are the ones that are abandoned at best and killed and tortured at worst.

The horror stories that can be recounted by the dedicated people who work for the SPCA are a case in point.

However, with more awareness and the cooperation not only of the various NGOs that have animal welfare at heart but also of the Church - which every January celebrates the Feast of St Anthony the Abbot during which animals both domestic and farmyard are blessed as part of God's creation - the situation in Malta will improve and we will have fewer abandoned dogs and cats running around the streets.

The feeling that dogs have towards man is not naturally reciprocal and it is through education that man can become animals' best friend in return. Today being Animal Awareness Day, one is reminded of the final chapter of one of the greatest books ever written in the last century, The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe.

In it, Munthe, a renowned physician and surgeon, explains his love for the animal world which he fought to protect all his life. In the final chapter he imagines his death and his appearance in the forecourt of Heaven.

As the great Saints, Prophets, Martyrs and Doctors of the Church hummed and hawed about whether Dr Munthe should be admitted or not, just when all seemed lost, a little man in a dirty and torn brown cassock appeared and with just a little smile won the day by gently sending all the great and the good about their business without another word.

Our attitude towards animals will certainly weigh heavily on the scales when we come to be judged. St Francis, as we have seen, is, in his simplicity and humility, a most powerful saint and his is an example to be followed all our lives.