Father David Simonetti was never a pet person. He never had a pet growing up, he said, except a goldfish he won at a carnival.

“He drowned,” Simonetti said.

But when he was living alone in the rectory at St. James Parish in Sauk Village he wanted some companionship, so he got his first dog, a tricolor collie named Bella the Ballerina.

“It so changed me that within a year and a half, I had three dogs,” Simonetti said.

In addition to Bella, there’s an old English sheepdog, born on the Oct. 4 feast of St. Francis of Assisi, named Frankie Blue, and a 150-pound Newfoundland named Francis the Bear.

Many parishes observe the feast of St. Francis, patron saint of animals, by inviting people to bring their pets for a blessing.

When Simonetti moved into his current parish, St. Florian in Chicago’s Hegewisch neighborhood, he acquired three peacocks as well, a blue male named Mighty Max, a while male named Angel and a white female named Gina.

The peacocks, he said, provide a bit of beauty in an old industrial neighborhood. They also draw people to the parish, including people who might never consider visiting the church.

“I get kids ringing the doorbell, asking to see the peacocks,” Simonetti said. “I tell them to get their father or their mother, and then we can go back to the yard and see them. And I’ll pick up a peacock feather and give it to them.”

Others come and sit in the garden in front of the peacocks’ pen, he said, whether to pray or meditate or just have a quiet moment in a beautiful spot.

He’s also added nine fish and two (at one time three) parakeets to the menagerie. He was so moved by the connection he felt with his pets, and the ways his pets allow him to connect with other people, that he made it the topic of his thesis for the doctorate in ministry he earned at the University of St. Mary f the Lake: “Pet and Pray: The Transforming Power of Grace and Conversion Through God’s Loving Creatures.”

The animals now are part of his daily routine, he said. In the morning, he starts his coffee and then feeds and checks on them. By the time he’s done, his coffee is ready and he takes it upstairs with his breviary to pray the Daily Office.

“All creation is interdependent and interconnected through God,” Simonetti said. “I always understood that intellectually. But once I got a dog, it opened me up to the beauty of creation and caring for creation.”

Father Edward Cronin, pastor of St. Helen Parish, 2315 W. Augusta Blvd., said having pets naturally encourages people to honor all of God’s creation, especially the animal kingdom.

“Dogs, cats, birds … they offer this glimpse of how God created the world, for all of us to live in harmony,” Cronin said. “Man is fulfilled when is more in sync with the rest of God’s creation, and that includes the animal kingdom.”

Cronin’s two dogs — Bella, a shih tzu mix, and Kazu, a Japanese chin, sometimes accompany him on visits and to church, he said. Bella was adopted from a shelter in a mostly Latino neighborhood and came to him responding only to commands in Spanish. Now she is tri-lingual, understanding commands in Spanish, English and Polish, after spending time with Polish-speaking parish staff members.

“They’ll sit right up in front of church when I’m praying the rosary,” he said. “They love to be with people.”

That spirit of care for animals is one of the things that drew Father Jeffrey Grob, director of canonical services for the archdiocese, to keep birds.

Grob has seven birds of different breeds where he lives at the St. Celestine Rectory in Elmwood Park. The birds — Windancer, an African grey Congo parrot; Gizmo, a green-cheeked conure; Renew Church, a parakeet; Rosebud, a rose-breasted cockatoo; Alfie, a Quaker parrot; Zoe; a crimson rosella; and Sunny D, sun conure — offer a connection to the natural world, Grob said.

The newest one, Renew Church, is a parakeet that was found outside and adopted, Grob said. Alfie and Zoe have been with him since he was completing graduate work in Canada.

“I’m a Wisconsin farm boy,” he said. “We raised quail, pheasants, guinea hens, and then we’d release them. It’s a way of giving back, a way of restoring things.”

Birds can be good pets for priests because, among other things, “they are quite portable.”

Pets in general offer companionship, Grob said.

“There’s unconditional love,” he said. “They look forward to having you home. It helps to reduce isolation. There’s a joy.”

While pets must never be placed on an equal footing with people, neither are they mere objects. Having a pet comes with a responsibility to care for it, Grob said.

“It’s not always a user-friendly relationship,” he said. “It’s not that we have creation at our disposal, to do what we will. It’s a give and take. We, as people, can become very self-centered. Having another creature for which to care helps, even if it’s a pet.”