New York: New York worshippers celebrated mass at St. John the Divine Cathedral on Sunday alongside hundreds of animals - including a camel, a pony, snakes, ostriches, geese, cats and dogs - which all queued up for blessings of their own.
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The Manhattan Episcopal church invited its four-legged guests - or no-legged, in the case of the snakes - to mark the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, known as the patron saint of pets and animals.
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Sunday's ceremony was a special milestone for the parish, which has not held a traditional first-weekend-of-October animal blessing since 2018, due to a fire and then the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Animal-lovers of many faiths brought their furry friends to receive a little extra grace, including Jon Shweky, who is Jewish, and Christine Cookman, who is Catholic. They brought their black labrador, who is training to become a guide for the blind starting in November.
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"We wanted to bring him for a blessing before he went in (to become a guide dog), for a good health and good luck," Cookman told AFP. "It's such a spiritual (and) amazing thing to be involved with a church that recognizes the soul of animals," she added.
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The cavernous interior of the neogothic cathedral - whose construction began in 1892 - allowed space for around 1,500 human attendees to join in on the $15 service, which was presided over by New York Episcopal Bishop Andrew Dietsche.
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Most of the critters - the majority of them dogs - did their best to quietly endure the Mass, though some did become agitated when the camel processed down the aisle.
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One creature did cause a small incident when it urinated on one of the stone columns helping to hold the weight of the building, whose dome was designed by Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino.
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Kristin Portecella, 62, and her mother Dagmar brought in their dog Sadie for a blessing, happy to catch the one day a year when pets are permitted in church. "They are part of our... unconditional love," she said of her pup.
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Also filling the pews at St. John's were an alligator, an owl, bunnies, goats, a lemur, a duck - along with several other species.
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A churchgoer with her pet lemur.
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A churchgoer with his pet ostrich.
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