Do Our Pet Animals Go to Heaven?

Do our pet animals (even all dogs and cats and fish and all other animals) really go to heaven? Given all the problems in the world today, that may seem like a rather trivial question, but it deserves an honest answer just like any other question about our Catholic faith. We pet owners love our animals. They’re part of our family, and just like anyone else in our family, we want to see them again in heaven when we die.

So what does our faith say about this important topic? Admittedly, it doesn’t say much. Catholicism is all about what we need to do to get to heaven, so God has not told us a ton about the rest of creation other than what we need to know to fulfill his will for us.

However, I don’t think we are entirely out of luck here. I would suggest that our faith does in fact give us a glimmer of hope for our furry (or scaly or feathery) friends after they die. It is not all that explicit, but it is there if we reflect carefully on a key aspect of God’s relationship with his creation.

The Typical Answer

Let’s start by examining the typical Catholic answer to this question. If you try looking it up online, most Catholic websites are going to say that animals don’t go to heaven (or anywhere else) when they die. They’ll say that we humans have spiritual souls that survive the death of our bodies, but animals only have what they call material souls. This basically means that when their bodies die, their souls die as well, and we know this because animals can’t do anything that transcends the limitations of mere matter.

Take rational thought, for example. Matter alone cannot think rationally. That requires a spiritual component, so since we humans can think rationally, we know that we must have spiritual souls that can survive the death of our bodies. However, animals just act on instinct, so they don’t need spiritual souls. Instead, they are purely material beings. There is no part of them that can survive their physical death, so when they die, they’re gone forever.

A Binding Teaching?

Most places that give this kind of answer simply present it as the Catholic answer without any further nuance, but that is not really correct. See, this isn’t in the Bible, nor is it a doctrine or dogma of our faith. It is not official Church teaching, so it is not the Catholic answer. Rather, it is just a human philosophical opinion.

Granted, it is the most popular opinion among Catholic theologians and philosophers going back centuries, so it is a very old and venerable tradition, but it is not binding on the faithful. We Catholics aren’t obligated to believe it the way we are obligated to believe things like the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception, so we are free to disagree with it if we do not find the reasoning convincing.

And in my opinion, we should disagree with it. I don’t want to get too bogged down with the details, so I’ll just give one reason why I find it unconvincing. While animals cannot think rationally, they are conscious and they have feelings, and I would suggest that those traits also transcend the limitations of mere matter. As a result, animals must have some spiritual component as well. Granted, this still leaves open the question of what happens to that component after they die, but it shows that the typical Catholic answer does not close the book on this question.

No Official Teaching

So where can we turn to find a better answer? Does the Bible say anything about what happens to animals after they die? Unfortunately, it does not. While Scripture is clear that human beings are very different from animals (for example, we’re made in God’s image and likeness, but animals aren’t; see Genesis 1:20-28), it does not say or imply much of anything about what happens to them when they die.

Sure, it says that there will be animals in the new creation that will come about when Jesus comes again at the end of human history (for example, Isaiah 11:6-9, 65:25), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that animals’ souls survive their deaths the way ours do. It could just mean that God will create new animals to fill the renewed creation.

And we find a similar silence when we look to the teaching of the Church. The Church teaches that we have to respect all of creation and that we can genuinely love animals (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2415-2418), but it doesn’t say anything about what happens when they die.

The Role of Love

So are we entirely out of luck here? Are there any clues that point one way or the other, or do we just have to accept that we’re completely in the dark on this one? In my opinion, the safest stance to take on this issue is an optimistic agnosticism. In other words, we can’t know for sure whether animals will be in heaven, but I have a strong suspicion that they will be. And here is why. I have a cat, and I love her to death. I don’t want her to cease to exist. I want her to be a part of the eternal bliss that I hope to share with God and the saints after I die.

And if I feel that way about her, I can’t imagine that God wants her to be in heaven any less than I do. She is his creature, and since he is love (1 John 4:8, 16), he has to love her infinitely more than I ever could. And if that is the case, he also has to want her to be with him in heaven infinitely more than I ever could, so I have a hard time believing that he would just let her cease to exist when she dies.

Admittedly, I am far from infallible, so I can’t guarantee that my reasoning here is foolproof. As much as I wish I could assure you that your pets will definitely go to heaven when they die, I can’t do that. I can only say that we have good reason to believe that they very well might. God’s love gives us hope that we may see them again some day, and if you ask me, you can’t really go wrong betting on God’s love.