A woman I know is grieving the death of her beloved cat after a long and difficult illness. The cat was 17. The woman is deeply religious, and she arranged for her pet to be sent off with a prayer service and funeral.  

Which brings me to a topic people love to debate.  At various times, I’ve been asked, “Do animals go to heaven?”

The fact is: nobody knows for sure, and the Church is silent on the subject of the afterlife of pets. But if you do a little Googling, you can find some sane and sensible spiritual guidance:

Of all earthly creatures, only humans are made in the image of God (see Gn 1:26-27). Their soul is actually an immortal spirit, fully rational, able to reason and communicate at high levels, and able to choose good or evil with a free will.

Among earthly creatures, only humans are truly able to love in the full sense of the word: to will the highest good of another. Humans can know and love God and enter into friendship with Him in a way that no other earthly creature can.

Through sanctifying grace, the human soul is capable of the Beatific Vision in heaven — that is, capable of entering so fully into union with God that we can see Him and know Him as He is.

Animals have “souls” in the sense that they are alive; they aren’t just objects like rocks or chairs. That’s why we enjoy them so much!

But their souls aren’t the same as human souls. The human soul is something much higher and greater, and that makes it possible for humans to have a deep friendship with God in a way that other creatures can’t….

…Given that human beings can have fellowship with God in a way that the animals can’t, it would make sense that life in heaven is a privilege that animals don’t share with us in any form. But Scripture seems to be silent about the matter, and the Church has never pronounced on it authoritatively….

…St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) taught that animal “souls” could not by their nature survive death. Unlike human souls, he said, they are perishable when separated from their proper bodies.

Even so, perhaps that leaves open the possibility that God might choose to keep at least some animal “souls” from perishing after death, granting them a privilege beyond their natural capacity.

In any case, we do know that, since animals cannot have sanctifying grace in their souls, they cannot receive the Beatific Vision. So if some animals go to heaven in some sense, it wouldn’t be for the same reason that humans are in heaven.

What other reasons could there be? It just might be that God would allow the animals we’ve loved on earth to take part somehow in our heavenly life as part of our eternal happiness.

In fact, since God himself takes delight in all the good creatures He has made, perhaps He would give animals some sort of life in heaven for the sake of His own pleasure and glory….

…At the very least, we can say that all we have loved on this earth has shaped who we are. So the effects of those loves on us, including our cherished memories of them, will in some sense live within us forever.

Meanwhile, drop by EWTN and you’ll find this:

One principle is that all living things have a soul. Here soul is defined as what makes an organic body live. Now when any living thing dies, its soul is separated from its body. In the case of plants and animals the soul goes out of existence. But in the case of man, the soul remains in existence because it is a spiritual or immaterial thing. Consequently, it differs from the souls of animals in two important respects. First, it is the seat of intelligence or reason. For this reason a man is held responsible for his actions in a way that animals are not. Secondly, the soul is immortal. A thing which has no physical parts cannot fall apart or be poisoned or be crushed or be put out of existence. For this reason the souls of the saved will always be aware of themselves as enjoying the vision of God for all eternity. This enjoyment will be the result of having chosen to act on earth in such a way that one did the will of God rather than one’s own will. And the souls of the damned will be aware of themselves as never attaining this vision of God because they have shown by their lives on earth that they did not wish this vision but instead preferred their own will.

In the light of this essential difference between human beings and animals, it would seem that we would not see the souls of our pets in heaven for the simple reason that they do not have immortal souls and are not responsible for their actions. They do not have the intelligence which allows them to choose either God’s will or their own will. There is, then, an incomparable distance, say, between the soul of the sorriest human being who ever lived and the most noble brute animal that ever walked the earth.

Now a child might be heartbroken at the thought that he will never see his pet again. He cannot yet understand this explanation about the difference between the human and the animal soul. I suppose that one could tell the child that when he hopefully gets to heaven, he could ask God to see his old pets if he still wished to. There would be no harm in that. For we know that when a person finally sees God, he will not be concerned with seeing old pets or favorite places but rather will be captured in the complete fulfillment of the joy of which old pets and favorite places are but little signs. We adults know that, even if the child does not.