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Heavenly Companionship

Denise Flaim | Animal House

July 18, 2000

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EUGENE O'NEILL'S "Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog" is making the rounds of pet lovers' e-mails again.

"I would like to believe...that there is a Paradise," wrote the playwright, anthropomorphizing the thoughts of Blemie, his departed Dalmatian. "Where one is always young and full-bladdered. Where all the day one dillies and dallies...Where each blissful hour is mealtime. Where in long evenings there are a million fireplaces with logs forever burning, and one curls oneself up and blinks into the flames and nods and dreams, remembering the old brave days on earth and the love of one's Master and Mistress."

But "I am afraid," Blemie confessed, "that this is too much even for such a dog as I am to expect."

Though it is impossible to get an unimpeachable answer to the question of whether or not our pets go to heaven, Blemie had reason to doubt.

Denise Flaim Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

"I think it's a very, very nice question," says Rabbi Anchelle Perl of Beth Sholom Chabad of Mineola. "Certainly from a Jewish perspective, we are exalted, encouraged, obliged to be very careful about and kind to animals." And, pointing to the mysticism of the Kabbalah, Perl says there is a possibility of an animal entering heaven-if, that is, it is a reincarnation of a human being.

Otherwise?

"Will someone go to heaven and meet her cat? My answer would be that maybe because of the life and the enjoyment this cat gave you, that's helped you get to heaven," says Perl. "But there is clearly a different role between a human being and animal."

"There's really nothing in our Catholic tradition that says animals go to heaven," says the Rev. Jim Stachacz, a priest at the Church of St. Brigid's in Westbury. "The reason is they do not possess what we call the rational soul. Animals are unable to make a differentiation between right and wrong, whereas humans are. In our choosing, we choose God or not choose God, and they really wouldn't know who God is."

Generally, that viewpoint is prevalent in western religions, says Ralph Acampora, an assistant professor of philosophy at Hofstra University. He points to some notable exceptions, including St. Francis of Assisi, who "runs around preaching to birds and other sorts of creatures as if they are receptive and have need of salvation." But for a truly animal-encompassing theology, he suggests looking "outside of your sort of monotheistic world religions," to tribal cultures such as the aborigines of Australia and the Ojibway in Canada and the northern United States, "who have this notion that humans and animals are not separate, and are partners in some sort of spirit substance. That's sort of way beyond the pale in western thinking, but it's taken for granted in childen in our own culture. It's sort of like you have to be socialized in a belief system that takes animals out of the realm of spirit and personality."

In this new-agey time, things are changing-slowly. "Just recently, in the past generation or so, there's been a number of writers that have taken seriously the idea that there might be a direct duty to nonhuman animals morally speaking-that there's a soul, as it were, to be mourned," says Acampora. "Those are still pretty much minority views."

"As a Christian, I kept hearing that animals can't go to heaven," remembers Mary Buddemeyer-Porter of Manchester, Mo., whose research contradicting that claim evolved into her book "Will I See Fido in Heaven?" (Eden Publications, $7.95). "In Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah and the animals-it always mentions the animals," she says, noting one Biblical passage she uses to support her position. "And a covenant can't be broken."

Even if they politely shoo animals away from the threshold to paradise, many religious groups acknowledge the importance of things furred and feathered in our lives-even bringing them into houses of worship for special rites and blessings.

"The God I know is a God of love, and wherever people love animals, God is there, and to me, that's like heaven," said Rev. Christopher T. Connell of All Saints Episcopal Church in Great Neck, after the annual Blessing of the Animals last year.

And as for Blemie, wherever he wound up, he took his memories with him.

"Whenever you visit my grave, say to yourselves with regret but also with happiness in your hearts at the remembrance of my long, happy life with you:

"'Here lies one who loved us and whom we loved.' No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail."