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our connection with animals: Is it for real or is it something we just imagine? Pope Francis has made remarks that have been interpreted as suggesting that animals have souls and can go to heaven. His comments were seen as a departure from conservative Roman Catholic theology that traditionally held that animals cannot go to heaven because they have no souls. Pope John Paul II is reported to have said that animals must have souls since they were created by God. This statement indicates a belief in the existence of animal souls. The Catholic Church does not have an [...]

St. Bonaventure reminds us of the life of St. Francis of Assisi That true godliness which, according unto the Apostle, is profitable unto all things, had so filled the heart of Francis and entered into his inmost parts as that it seemed to have established its sway absolutely over the man of God. It was this piety that, through devotion, uplifted him toward God; through compassion, transformed him into the likeness of Christ; through condescension, inclined him unto his neighbour, and, through his all-embracing love for every creature, set forth a new picture of man’s estate before the Fall. [...]

natural powers According to the six stages of ascension into God, there are six stages of the soul’s powers by which we mount from the depths to the heights, from the external to the internal, from the temporal to the eternal–to wit, sense, imagination, reason, intellect, intelligence, and the apex of the mind, the illumination of conscience (“Synteresis”). These stages are implanted in us by nature, deformed by sin, reformed by grace, to be purged by justice, exercised by knowledge, perfected by wisdom. Therefore he who wishes to ascend to God must, avoiding sin, which deforms nature, exercise the [...]