CHRISTIANS AGAINST ALL AMIMAL ABUSE FOR AUTUMN & WINTER: 2007 e.mail:
[email protected] Tel: 01352-712368 website: www.animalpadre.org ‘Precious in the sight of The lord is the death of his saints’. Such is a quotation from the psalms, and I’m sure that it’s not confined to those marble faced type canonised by past pontiffs. Yes, and thankfully, during the century that has just gone, many of these ‘saints’ were thrown out after centuries of veneration All part of the reforming work of good ‘John the 23rd’! Not the result of senility as some quite uncharitably supposed, but rather because of his desire to bring about a reformation within, which went well past any medieval council of Trent. Some of the saints I, myself, have in mind were those within the cause of animal liberation; and some of them were, indeed, far removed from one’s traditional profession of faith. I think of Jill Phipps and of Barrie Horne. I’d offered to conduct the funeral of the former, before Coventry cathedral’s provost intervened with his rigid conditions; and I’d made a one-man protest outside the York hospital of the latter! However, the general opinion of animal rights activists towards Christian clergy hardly endeared them towards my own feeble efforts for their cause. After all, these two comparatively young folk would, literally, lay down their lives for the animals; reminiscent of far off ‘good shepherds’ prepared to lay down their lives for sheep and used by Christ as His supreme analogy Indeed, let us not forget also the sacrifice of her life - for the animals - of Vicki Moore! Tossed repeatedly by a frenzied bull after the latter had been repeatedly stabbed and goaded, Vicki – momentarily carried away – had jumped over in to the ring to acquire close ups of the barbarity taking place.