I am not a conventionally religious person, I do not handle Jewish dogma well and would not last an hour in the Catholic Faith but when Pope Frances said “I would not speak in absolute truth” I thought briefly about traveling to Rome, maybe to kiss his feet. He is a good man, and the heart of a good man is more powerful than almost any of the words that comes out of his mouth, because we know he is telling his truth.

We live in a world of absolute truth, in politics, religion, in the animal world. Last week I was in a bookstore when a woman came up to say she was a fan and loved my work, but she said when she “liked” me on Facebook, a good friend e-mail her and said she should not like me at all, I was opposed to mixed breed dogs. Nobody should “like” Jon Katz, she said. I smiled and pointed to the cover of the Frieda book, and I said I wasn’t even sure what that meant, let alone why me or anyone else should believe it. I see the Doctrine of Absolute Truths on display in our world every day, in almost every story that comes out of Washington. Or for that matter, out of any discussion about animals.

You don’t just disagree with Cesar Millan, you must hate him and accuse him of abuse. “I won’t ever buy one of your books,” one woman e-mailed me recently, “you believe in killing dogs for no reason.” Another woman asked me at a reading why I “hated” rescue people. An odd question, I said, for a man with a rescue donkey, three rescue sheep, a rescue dog, two rescue chickens and two rescue barn cats.

In our culture, if you are on the “left,” you must think one way, and if you are on the “right” another, if you ever deviate from either course, you are something to be rejected and despised. Some people call this patriotism, but it is the very definition of fascism, the regimentation of all thinking, an aggressive politicizing or nationalism, and of many of the principles of communism, where disagreement is a criminal offense. In the animal world, absolute truth is epidemic: I remember a woman walking out of one of my book readings because I said I was dubious about the widespread claim that animals grieve the way humans do. There was no reason for her to even listen to me if I disagreed with here. This is, to me, just another kind of hatred and bigotry expressed under the guise of love.

Pope Francis has inspired me and reaffirmed my lifelong challenge to notions of absolute truth, whether it comes from politicians, grammarians, doctors, religious leaders of people who claim to love animals. If you really care about truth, you know there isn’t any absolute truth, there are different ways to look at the world. Truth evolves, it is malleable. This is why I can never light with any single religion, never put a sticker on my head that says “left” or “right” and never see myself as one thing, all of the time. My ideas change constantly, continuously, and I hope they always do – Absolute Truth is the death of the mind, the death of thinking, labels are poison, I won’t wear any or permit others to stick them on me.

Francis is urging his church to act like a church, not an Inquisition, to focus on principles of love, mercy, and charity. When I compare his message with those coming from Washington, of from so many in the animal world, my faith in faith is revived and inspired. For myself, I will continue to be (like my new friend Francis) a challenger of absolute truth, a warrior against this noxious kind of dogma, which has killed, tortured, damaged countless numbers of people.

Francis is a devout Catholic, he is not changing his views or the doctrines of his church, he is simply saying we don’t need to judge others so harshly because they think differently than we do. In the same way that politicians and lobbyists and ideologues hide behind political labels to advance absolute truth, and punish those who disagree, and many people exploit their love of animals to try to wound or hate people, so have religions hid behind absolute truth to inflict judgment and misery on people who choose to think for themselves.

Good for Pope Francis. My very identity is about thinking for myself. When I cease to do that, and retreat behind Absolute Truth, that will be the first death. The second is just about breathing.