A British priest has appeared in an advertisement for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals UK, denouncing bullfighting and calling on Pope Francis to condemn the sport. Source: CNA.
West Sussex priest Fr Terry Martin appeared in the ad in the July issue of the Catholic UK magazine The Tablet, posing alongside a bull with a caption reading: “It’s a sin to torture animals.”
Fr Martin has long been outspoken in advocating for the welfare of animals, having sent a joint letter with priests from Canada and France to Pope Francis last year calling on him to condemn the “torture and violent slaughter of innocent bulls”.
This latest advertisement forms part of the PETA campaign that also beseeches the Pope to sever the Church’s links to the sport.
In an op-ed published in the Catholic Herald earlier this year, Fr Martin cited the Holy Father’s 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si’, which states that “every act of cruelty toward any creature is contrary to human dignity”.
“Paragraph 2418 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church also states: ‘[I]t is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly,’” Fr Martin continued. “Yet animals are taunted, terrorised, ridiculed, repeatedly stabbed, and eventually killed in bullfights.”
Fr Martin said his faith was an encouragement in his endeavours to decry bullfighting, stating that it “allows me to see the entirety of God’s creation as a loving, divine gift”.
“Given that in Spain, and in some other countries, the Catholic Church is culturally caught up with bullfighting, the lack of logic and absence of Christian compassion strikes me forcibly,” he said.
“It seems that many bullrings have chapels and chaplains, and that matadors (a word that can easily be translated from the Spanish as meaning ‘murderer’) queue up for the Church’s blessing. More than this, many horrendous bullfights and bull runs that exist are held in honour of Catholic saints and in celebration of their feast days.”
FULL STORY
Priest partners with PETA to condemn bullfighting, calls on Pope Francis to denounce it (By Gigi Duncan, CNA)
