This is funny.
This from the guy who acted as if even Francis’ sneezes were sacred “current” magisterium, has signaled that – now – it’s okay to criticize the Pope!
But in the era of #LaudatoSi is it right to treat animals in this way? They would be utterly petrified … https://t.co/waoSvXBXCx
— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) January 21, 2026
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
Mr. Ivereigh is probably hoping to be appointed as prefect of a new Dicastery for Mammalians Nurturable.
Is he serious? Does he ever eat a hamburger or a steak? Does he think those animals are volunteers? He did explain why the world is such a hot mess, if we’re actually in the era of Laudato Si. My gosh liberals are so weird.
“In the era of Laudato Si'” seems Spirit of Vatican II-adjacent to me.
What is the era of Laudato Si? What makes an era? Aren’t we still in the era of Pascendi Dominici Gregis?
Austen Ivereigh sounds like he needs to get off social media and go spend a month or two in some small town in the middle of nowhere.
@Kathleen10: don’t confuse being a kook with being a liberal… plenty of those of us left of center don’t care about this nonsense :)
Just wait to see what people say if he joins Trump’s Board of Peace
Oh, Austen. It was only a matter of time.
Oh, this is another one where we can “run a little thought experiment”. The tweet from Miss Guzik states that the lambs will be shorn, and their wool will make palliums (pallii?) for archbishops. So Mr. Ivereigh thinks the lambs would be petrified of a haircut?
Are shearings any worse in this versus any other era?
Since a Christian ought to believe that all Creation was made by God (right, Austen?) and that should include sheep and lambs (right?), and He made everything to fit His divine Order (right?), is it not reasonable to think that He foresaw we would find their wool especially valuable, and use it for many things, including giving Him honor and praise?
And if the lambs truly knew, as we can know, wouldn’t they be honored, flattered, even besides themselves with joy that they were the lambs that get to donate the wool for this purpose?
As the football commentators say, C’MON MAN!
And while we’re at it, what if His Holiness was blessing them before sending them to the kitchen? I guess poor Austen would need a fainting couch or something.
Tastes better than chicken.
The era of Laudato Si? What’s that? Like something form an obscure Chinese dynasty no one cares about anymore?
Lamb chops, Lebanese Kibbie, My Son in law is Greek. We do Greek Easter every year. Whole lamb cooked on rotisserie.
In the era of Laudato si’?
Now, for one thing, it is clear that Laudato si’ did not start an era. It is also clear that if it did, it would be over now. But somehow the statement is flawed in an even deeper manner.
Mr. Ivereigh even while giving himself the air of appealing to Laudato si’, actually manages to contradict this very encyclical in the same sentence.
I read the encyclical when it came out. Coincidentally, I remember that I liked quite a bit about it, its content that is, whatever to be said about the choice of topic. Others might disagree. Maybe there are errors too, though I don’t remember a hard one of those. Anyway, encyclicals of Popes deserve to be taken seriously, whatever to be said about the Pope and even about this encyclical.
The thing is: I do not remember any word in it, at all, against farming, at least not against good-old-style farming. Which certainly does include livestock-husbandry.
A cursory view (you know, Ctrl+F) confirms me in this. “Animal”: The Pope decries species-extinction, wildlife-extinction, is against cruelty against animals (interestingly, his chief objection to even that is that it disposes men to be cruel against one another also, no. 92), urges caution w.r.t. genetic engineering (but does not ban even that outright), mentions, in passing but as something obviously acceptable, the domestication of animals (no. 133). – Other searches confirm this further. Pope Francis is explicitly against economically exploiting activities that lead to “the impoverishment of agriculture and local stock breeding“.
Coincidentally, I personally agree there of course; whatever Pope Francis said and did later. But that is not the point. The point is:
No, Mr. Ivereigh. Laudato si’ is in no way the vegetarianist, veganist, “anti-speciesist”, etc. encyclical that you present it as. The loving treatment of these lambkins by the Holy Father, loving but, yes, using also and dominating over them, is precisely in the spirit of Laudato si’.
(But of course the real spirit, not the “Spirit-of”. That thing all over again.)
Where does Austin “Jackwagon” Iverigh think wool comes from. It is shorn from sheep and lambs! The lambs aren’t killed. In fact, they are tenderly cared for by nuns until the shearing day.
This guy is a piece of work and a Laudato Si apologist.
Sorry for the misspelling of the Jackwagon’s name….
I think that the fact that this is the hill he decided to turn on is hilarious. Because it makes him look pretty ridiculous. Like with +Roche’s document to the cardinals, sometimes it feels like Leo is just letting them make fools of themselves.
I would to post a response to Mr. Ivereigh, but he blocked me along ago for daring to question Bergoglio.
These synodal types are the epitome of hypocrisy!
In the February 3, 1930 issue of Time Magazine, the reporter recounts that “two of the most docile” of the lambs pastured on the lands of St. Agnes are picked out, “carefully washed with finest soap, garlanded with flowers, trussed together with ribbons, laid in a grass-lined basket, carried to the Vatican.”
(This would have been in the time of Pope Pius XI.)
The reporter described the lambs of that year as “Bleating amiably, the two lambs made frantic efforts to lick the Pontiff’s hand as he blessed them, then lay quiescent as they were solemnly handed over to the Benedictine nuns of the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, who promised to take the best of care of them until the day of their shearing, Wednesday of Holy Week, when the weather should be warm.”
Every year, the lambs are pretty chill about the event, so it’s very likely that they get some training and familiarization with being carried in a basket. I suspect that treats and petting are involved.
The lambs no longer come from a Trappist sheep farm. The news stories don’t say where they are getting lambs now.
It’s pretty dumb not to keep up tradition, but I’m sure there’s some dumb EU reason that stood in the way of the Trappists.
Story from Joan’s Rome in 2019, explaining the procedures used to prepare the lambs for being carried: https://joansrome.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/january-21-st-agnes-baby-lambs-and-the-pallium/
An interesting thing is that the papal sediari actually do carry the lambs, still today! The news pictures show one of the lambs trying to lick a chair-carrier’s white gloved hand, so clearly the lambs are pretty fond of humans.
I checked for updates, and apparently Joan didn’t know that the Trappists were out.
https://zenit.org/2014/01/21/pope-francis-presented-with-lambs/
This says that the lambs are now raised by the nuns of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, but I’m not clear who they’d be. The nuns once associated with that church were Poor Clares who had to move out to another convent, and they seem to be down to two ladies.
So I guess that would refer to the convents’ lands and people farming them? I don’t know.