I am not sure I expressed my thought clearly. If death for human beings is defined as “the soul separating from the body,” then what is death for animals? It might make more sense to say that the human soul separates from the body when the body dies. Although I suppose it is trickier than it may seem (in special and unusual cases), we know when a human being has died in exactly the same way we know when an animal has died. There is no way of determining when a human soul has left the body. (As I understand it, if a priest is called to administer the last rites to someone, and that person dies before the priest arrives, the priest may still proceed with the last rites.)

Let me put it another way. If the definition of death is “when the soul leaves the body,” there would be no way of telling when a human being was dead. But people are pronounced dead all the time . . . and buried! So obviously (it seems to me) we do not use the soul leaving the body as a definition of death in any sphere except a religious one. Even in Catholic hospitals, Catholic doctors would use the same criteria to pronounce a patient dead as atheist doctors would uses.

There are a multitude of ways one can discuss animals and their lives and souls. Traditionally it was said that they had mortal souls which perish with their bodies, while humans have immortal souls which continue outside of the body. Interestingly enough, the earliest Christian discussion of immortality was not so clear cut with the soul — it was in the renaissance, after Ficino, that the immortality of the soul became a part of the general doctrine of the church. If this is the case with the human soul, I think there is room for debate over animal souls, and we do not have to necessarily follow Aristotle here. But even if we did, we can return to the ante-Nicene understanding of immortality as a gift given to us by God, that we are not “naturally immortal” but immortality is given to us via the incarnation. If that is said about us, perhaps it can also be said about animals. Anyway, this is another discussion for another day. But to your initial point, yes, I think death for animals might be different than for us: it would be similar to how their own life is different from ours.

Childhood memory. One of the parish priests visited our class one day and volunteered to answer questions. We were in the seventh or eighth grade at the time. One of the girls asked the priest if he could bless an ant. He thought a minute and said (clearly not taking the question all that seriously), “Well, I suppose you could use the blessing for animals.” When the priest left, our teacher, Sister Marion, berated the girl for asking such a frivolous question. But it hadn’t made the priest angry. Sister Marion was, by the way, probably the best teacher I ever had in my life. (To learn, she always taught is, is “to make it your own.”) When I majored in English in college and we studied grammar, I knew it already because of Sister Marion.

It is sad that Catholic school children were taught that animals had no souls; in the tradition it was they had souls, but not immortal souls. Descartes really did influence way too many in how they think of animals.

Now, I myself think that way of thinking of animals is also wrong. But even if we took the “they are not immortal” as the basis, it doesn’t mean they won’t be resurrected by God. And I certainly believe they have a place in the eschaton, and Scripture hints at it (with the messianic prophecies of animals). As you said, they are part of God’s design.

When people become loving servants to animals, they find their own lives are indeed improved.

As food slave to a menagerie of dogs, pet birds, wild birds, geese, squirrels, feral cats, deer and anything else that happens by, I welcome the bondage. One Canada (not Canadian!) goose has been here every August for over 10 years. He walks next to me, I feed him by hand, we’re buds. In December he leaves with the others and I say a prayer to St. Francis that we meet again next summer, dreading the year he doesn’t show up.

As a kid in Catholic school I was taught that animals did not have souls. Period. End of subject. I reject that completely. There is no way these sentient creatures were put here to be nothing more than road kill. They are part of God’s design and I expect to see them in Heaven. If they aren’t there, I’ll gladly go wherever they are–for me that will be Heaven!