Rethinking our treatment of animals in light of Laudato Si’

The encyclical Laudato Si’ builds on and extends previous Roman Catholic church teaching on animals to affirm their value as beloved creatures of God and reject anthropocentric claims that they were created merely to provide for human needs. The most striking aspect of the understanding of animals in Laudato Si’ is its deep grounding in a Franciscan account of our affective relationships with fellow creatures. Laudato Si’ can be recognized as a striking new moment in church teaching not only in relation to the interconnections between human and environmental well-being but also in relation to animals. If Laudato Si’ is right that Christians must reject the tyrannical anthropocentrism that ignores our affective bonds with sister and brother animals and recognizes that we need to attend to them alongside concern for human neighbors and the environment, Christians have obvious reason to resist the operations of industrialized animal agriculture.