Today is World Animal Day, and pet owners will give their pets an extra treat. I’m living in a highly secularised country and if I would ask random people on the street, they would think this feast day is a so-called ‘Hallmark Holiday’, invented by retailers to give their sales a boost. But if you look at the history of this day, you’ll notice this isn’t the case at all. The reason that Oct. 4 is called World Animal Day is that it was on this date that Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone died in 1226. To be more precise, he died on Oct. 3 in the evening, which would be the eve of Oct. 4.
Chances are that after reading the name, you still have no clue who this Giovanni Francesco di Bernadone was. That’s he’s more famous under his Latin name: Saint Franciscus of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, the environment, stowaways and merchants. Together with another great Italian saint, Saint Catharine of Sienna, St. Francis is also the patron saint of the country Italy. It’s no exaggeration he’s probably one of the most beloved saints venerated in the Catholic Church. One can ask why his example is still so appealing to us, many centuries later. I try to explain my take, but first let’s discuss a misunderstanding. Some people think that Francis and his followers of the religious order he founded, the Franciscans are proto-hippies who like hugging trees and are devout animal lovers.
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