Your article Quotes by the new Pope (TMID, 20 April) made an interesting read. On 19 April, at the time of the new Pope’s announcement, I too did some research about the new Pope, particularly where animal rights are concerned, and I would like to share what I found with your readers.

In an interview by German journalist Peter Seewald, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was reported as saying: “... we can see that they (animals) are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them.

“Animals, too, are God’s creatures, and even if they do not have the same direct relation to God that man has, they are creatures of his will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation and as important elements in the creation”.

“Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact as contradicting the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible”.

For more information, one may visit www.animalrightsmalta.com

Kenneth Cassar

Animal Rights Malta

Marsascala