Tag: Catholic Church

Saint Francis brought the dogs of San Antonio together in a series of convocations around the city. They met in parks at night. He stood in the middle of packs of hundreds of stray dogs, all of them panting in the lingering heat. No human got close enough to hear what Saint Francis said to them, but the dogs cried and yelped and none of them fought. During the day, Saint Francis walked up and down neighborhood streets stopping at fences to talk in whispers to dogs that had collars and their shots. After these discussions, which usually lasted no more than 10 minutes or so, the dogs became taciturn and stared vacantly over the rooftops of their neighborhoods. After a month or so, Saint Francis walked out of the city on the shoulder of Interstate 10 West. Thousands of dogs followed him in rows of two or three. They eventually stopped and watched him continue to make slow progress in his coarse brown robe. And then they turned around and went to back to where they came from. A few days later, they turned on the humans, attacking them on the streets in blurs of foam and teeth and blood-slick fur. The first day and night, they killed more than 500, mostly old people and children, and maimed 2,000 or so. Most streets and sidewalks were stained with blood and littered with human noses, ears, fingers, limbs, and ragged sheets of skin. The next day, the humans rallied, patrolling in packs of five or six, all of them weighed down with guns and ammunition. The dogs adapted. Dozens of them would rush a patrol. The ones that weren’t slaughtered in the first barrage bore down on the humans, who often fired again in panic, shooting as many people as dogs. Thousands of dogs died, but so did another 400 humans. The third day, the governor declared martial law in San Antonio, ordered people to remain indoors and sent in the Texas National Guard to kill every dog they could find. As San Antonians began burying and cremating their dead, they blamed Saint Francis for the bloodshed. He must have put the dogs up to this. State troopers launched a manhunt, but they couldn’t find him. Over time, however, the message of San Antonio’s archbishop and his priests prevailed: whatever Saint Francis said to the dogs, they must have misunderstood his meaning. After all, they said, dogs aren’t very bright.