I pray daily that the nations of the world will teach compassion for animals.Please pray directly for this to St. Francis, the Patron Saint for Animals.Please St. Francis — continue to help us in our treatment of animals. Imbue us with a spirit of compassion — making us realize that these animals are not ours — they are God’s and his gifts to us and He wants them treated compassionately til the end of time.Judgement day will be the final testimony for the inhumane treatment.I believe if you turn away from this, then you are part of the wrongdoing.Together with the help and compassionate love of St. Francis for the animals, we can start today to turn the world around to be better for the animals and mankind.Maybe compassion for the animals will lead to compassion for people around the world at the same time.If you believe the animals need help, please share this message with the world.Oct. 4th is the Feast of St. Francis.Frances is my middle name and my grandmother’s name. I believe and I hope St. Francis will put his hands on the backs and feet of the wild horses and save them from man’s inhumane treatment.
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Today –October 4th is the Feast of St. Francis. How glad I am that this
compassionate man lived. How I wish that there were more like him today,
though sadly, I don’t believe that they are even found among the Franciscan religious orders he founded. I had to leave the Third Order
Franciscans after 10 years because there was just nothing about the need to help the animals, and I didn’t even find any vegetarians or vegans among them.
I joined them because I thought they would reflect the charisms of St. Francis, but sadly they and the other orders don’t seem to promote anything for animal justice. Dear St. Francis, if this is true, I believe this must be profoundly disappointing to you, but please help those of us who have imbued your spirit and try to make a difference for suffering animals. On this day, I also have some prayer requests re some animal cruelties and injustices to them.
DISMANTLING THE CAFOS FROM HELL. This is a biggie and until the world at large tries to forgo their meat lust, it will not be accomplished. Perhaps the most we can hope for is the lessoning of the cruelty experienced by these poor incarcerated farm animals –chickens in tight battery cages, mother pigs in gestation crates, cows in a never ending milk line.
Thankfully, there seems to be some movement to get rid of battery cages and gestation crates. I believe that the EU is also doing something in this regard. However, that since probably 1950 we could treat these poor animals so cruelly is beyond comprehension and sadly, shouldn’t everyone who has eaten the products of cruelty with knowledge of their suffering bear some of this responsibility?
COMPASSIONATE SLAUGHTERHOUSE PRACTICES
Going through some of my saved articles in this regard, I came across the account of an Humane Society of the United States investigation of a New Jersey slaughter plant owned by the Catelli Brothers. This is what HSUS wrote of this experience: “Our undercover investigator documented calves being forced to rise to their feet by men who wrapped the calves’ tails around their hands –lifting the entire weight of the calf by this appendage. One calf with a broken leg was dragged by a chain around his neck and other calves were struck, kicked, pulled by their ears, and sprayed with water. The plant manager warned workers not to take some of these actions when the USDA inspector was around –an indirect admission that he knew that workers were breaking the law on animal handling.”
Breaking the law? These people were absolute brutes. These were baby calves after all. What kind of families did these workers come from? Were they allowed to torture little helpless creatures with impunity? Thank God, the US Department of Agriculture shut down the Catelli Bros. slaughter plant in suburban Monmouth County, New Jersey.
ELIMINATING WILD HORSE ROUND-UPS. We have administrations who by doing nothing to stop them have allowed the Bureau of Land Management to engage in cruel horse round-ups. Just yesterday the Humane Society of the US sent their latest blog– Latest Roundup in Wyoming Exposes Flaws, Failures in BLM’s Wild Horse Program.
Wayne Pacelle wrote about this cruelty: “At least 10 animals, including four yearlings, are dead after a poorly conducted and strategically suspected government roundup of approximately 800 wild horses in Wyoming. This loss of life, and the stress and trauma for the survivors, could have been avoided had the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) put in place a more humane and economically viable management plan for wild horses
throughout the West.”
BLM records showed that one yearling was found dead in a holding pen because of an acute neck injury. A three and a half month old filly was found dead of unknown causes. Unknown causes? — she was forced to run for miles in heat — without rest or water while fearing for her life because of the whirly bird monster. What a joke. They didn’t know the cause of her death? A six month old colt died in a horse trailer from pre-existing
lung injuries exacerbated by the helicopter drive. Shouldn’t we be enraged about this cruelty?
And where do many of these horses end up? –in cruel slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada. Humane groups which include animal experts have tried without success to convince our government to work with the humane community to manage wild horses using fertility control methods which would prevent this suffering, but sadly — not the President, not the Congress, not the BLM are responding compassionately.
Dear St. Francis — as you can see, we have a long road to go before we can ever consider ourselves humane and caring. I only mentioned three cases of animal cruelty Of course, there are many others — like the killing of wolves and deer for hunting “pleasure.” There are hospitals that still perform useless experiments on helpless animal subjects. There are horrible puppy mills where these poor dogs live in squalor while churning out pure breed dogs for people who don’t seem to care.
In Australia farm animals are exported in trying conditions on ships to countries where they face horrible slaughtering practices. In some oriental countries dogs and cats are butchered in horrible ways for their flesh. In Spain bulls are not only used in the ring but their horns are set afire in a “religious” festival.
Please St. Francis — continue to help us because generally our treatment of animals is abysmal. Certainly, my few examples attest to this. Imbue us with a spirit of compassion — making us realize that these animals are not ours — they are God’s and He wants them treated compassionately.