Parade of pets pack New York cathedral for blessing

AFP English

New York worshippers celebrate mass at St. John the Divine Cathedral alongside hundreds of animals -- including a camel, a sloth, snakes, ostriches, geese, cats and dogs -- which all queue up for blessings on the day of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, known as the patron saint of pets and animals.

Transcript

00:00 But if a little is all we can do, then as children of the one father, as siblings...

00:06 [chickens clucking]

00:11 [birds chirping]

00:37 This is Bodhi. He's been my friend and companion for the last nine years.

00:41 He'll be ten this year, I think. I'm not exactly sure because I got him from a shelter.

00:45 And they told me he was a chihuahua mix. So I want him to have a long and happy life.

00:50 So I bring him every year so he can get his blessings.

00:54 And hopefully we can be together for a long time.

01:03 Oh, this is Wrinkle. Yeah, that's Wrinkle.

01:08 She's a duck, and she's the very best one.

01:11 Oh, it was wonderful. It was delightful. Yeah, yeah.

01:15 Good sounds, very echoey. Had some animal friends. That was exciting.

01:21 And it kind of got sleepy there halfway, but it's okay because we made it through.

01:26 We almost fell asleep, didn't we? But we didn't.

01:29 It's hard to imagine that there's really never buses that long.

01:34 [drumming]

01:39 [chanting]

01:44 So we first started doing this service back in the '70s

01:56 when our then dean wanted to bring greater attention to the plight of the environment,

02:01 what was going on with the ozone layer, the beginning of people sounding the alarm on global warming.

02:06 And so the Feast of St. Francis seemed like a wonderful opportunity for that bridge.

02:11 St. Francis was a monk. He founded the Franciscan Order.

02:15 And he is the patron saint of animals, the environment, and the poor.

02:19 Oh, no, your English is great. But I know the accent.

02:23 [chatter]

02:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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