Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals The mission of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals is to promote within the Anglican Church and wider human community thankful awareness of God’s animal creation and practical and prayerful concern for its well being.
Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics The Director, the Rev'd Professor Andrew Linzey describes the centre as a theological and ethical think tank on animals.
RSPCA Aims to prevent cruelty to animals by actively promoting their care and protection.
Animals Australia The peak body for 40 animal-related organisations in Australia.
Voiceless Voiceless will work to promote respect and compassion for animals, to increase awareness of the conditions in which they live and to take action to protect animals from suffering.  Voiceless is particularly active in education of the young, in encouraging ethical corporate practices and is a leader in promoting animal law.
Compassion in World Farming The world's foremost organisation working to improve the lives of farm animals.  This site gives an overview of their work plus trends and developments in Europe and of international significance.  In particular, the news archive will allow you to focus on Australian concerns.
World Society for the Protection of Animals
WSPA exists for the sole purpose of raising the standards of animal welfare throughout the world.  WSPA works in co-operation with over 600 member organisations in more than 135 countries.

The worldwide thrust to lessen animal suffering is gathering momentum.  Part of this movement is now the involvement of faith communities.  Because people of faith have been at the forefront of social change for centuries, their support, it is hoped, will increasingly influence thinking, both within their own faith and in the wider community.  To this end Best Friends Animal Society and the Humane Society of the United States have developed Animals and Religion programs. 

The Humane Society of the United States
HSUS seeks a humane and sustainable world for all animals, and is calling on all people of faith, as a reflection of compassion and mercy, to take a stand for animals.  HSUS is concerned for all animals and their wide-ranging website contains a wealth of information.   The organisation produces a monthly on-line newsletter – The Humane Steward – and you can sign up to receive it.  Visit www.hsus.org/religion

Best Friends Animal Society
The US organisation Best Friends Animal Society has given sanctuary to abandoned and homeless animals for over twenty years.  Dedicated to reducing the number of unwanted animals, it now supports numerous grassroots organisations in the States and worldwide  An indication of their success is that in the early 90s 17 million animals (mostly cats and dogs) were destroyed in the US.  That figure is now approximately five million.  To further their aim – “A better world through kindness to animals” - Best Friends has now reached out to faith communities, and after a retreat for religious leaders of over 20 faith traditions, “A Religious Proclamation for Animal Compassion” was unveiled in Washington, DC on 7th November, 2007.  To read the Proclamation, which you can sign on line, and to learn how Best Friends initiatives are reaching into a number of religious communities, visit www.network.bestfriends.org/religion

ASWALfA_letter.pdf

As a corporate member of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals, the Diocese receives several copies of the ASWA Bulletin. If you would like to read the Letter from Australia in the current issue (reprinted with ASWA permission), click on the link above.

The Birds Born to Suffer
This year in the UK the theme for Animal Welfare Sunday (7th October) will be poultry.  The following few words from the Rt. Rev’d John Austin Baker, say it all.  Bishop Baker was Bishop of Salisbury from 1982-93, and is Patron of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals.

"It is in the battery shed that we find the parallel with Auschwitz....To shut your mind, heart and imagination to the sufferings of others is to begin slowly, but inexorably, to die. Those Christians who close their minds and hearts to the cause of animal welfare, and the evils it seeks to combat, are ignoring the fundamental spiritual teachings of Christ himself"

Live Exports
Due to international concern about the suffering caused by long-distance transport by sea and land to animals destined for slaughter in other countries, and the cruelty of the slaughtering process (from Australia, for instance, in excess of four million sheep are sent annually to the Middle East where slaughtering is nothing short of horrific), a global coalition has been formed, led by the World Society for the Protection of Animals.  Among the many groups supporting the campaign are Compassion in World Farming, Animals Australia and RSPCA Australia.  For informtation on the Handle with Care Coalition visit www.handlewithcare.tv/au.  The aim would be for exporting countries to export frozen and chilled meat only. 

Help with the cost of spay/neutering of pets
Hunter Animal Watch works with over 30 veterinary practices in the Lower Hunter to offer pensioners a subsidized cost to desex their cat or dog.  If this program could assist you, or someone you know, please call 49664344 or 49641823 any Monday or Tuesday between 1pm and 4pm.

“Eternal Treblinka”, Dr Charles Patterson, Lantern Books, New York, 2002.  (Treblinka was a Second World War extermination camp in Poland)

This is considered an iconic book of the animal movement and has won international acclaim.  It is now in 13 languages and has been highly praised inside and outside religious circles. 

“The whole effect is a very powerful document… No-one who reads this book will fail to be moved.”  Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals, UK.

Catholic Concern for Animals in the USA says “This is a profoundly important book.  Patterson argues convincingly that the exploitation and slaughter of animals was and is the model and impetus for human oppression and violence.”

“Eternal Treblinka”, describes the treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust and relates this to the way factory farmed animals are treated in our day.  In both cases millions of individuals are processed along a production line to their deaths.  High volume, speed, the end justifies the means. 

This is not an easy book to read, though it is plainly written.  And why the title?  Charles Patterson dedicated the book to the memory of the Jewish writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1978), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991).  Singer fled his native Poland in 1935, and settled in the USA.  He wrote extensively on the Holocaust.  His concern extended beyond the victims of that tragic period in human history, terrible though their fate was.  In his story The Letter Writer he wrote “….for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”  That is a profound observation, and a true one, giving rise in us to feelings of helplessness in the face of so much horror.  Fortunately, Patterson also tells us of the many Holocaust survivors who now advocate for animals as well as for humans.  Such people inspire each of us to play our part in the fight against cruelty.

Charles Patterson is a graduate of the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.  After his ordination as an Anglican (Episcopalian) priest, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in Religion from Columbia University in New York.  He has now left the active ministry to write full-time.

“Animals are God’s creatures, not human property, nor utilities nor resources nor commodities, but precious beings in God’s sight…..Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent suffering.  The cross of Christ is God’s absolute identification with the weak, the powerless and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended innocent suffering.”
Andrew Linzey, Animal Gospel, Westminster John Knox Press, 1999.

For information on animal issues, please contact Olga Parkes, Ph: (02) 49 521358.  Or email her at ocp@idl.com.au.

Olga Parkes is the Australian representative of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals. She is a member of the Executive of Animals Australia.