In this talk, I will explore animal sanctuaries through a theologico-political lens. The Latin root of the term ‘sacred’ or ‘sacer’ refers to that which ‘sets apart’, ‘consecrates’, or ‘makes holy.’ Animal sanctuaries—which are among the only places on earth in which persecuted animals are protected from systemic cruelty and offered a chance to live their lives in peace, comfort, and community— ‘consecrate’ animals by recognizing their intrinsic value irrespective of species, capability, or usefulness. Sanctuaries are themselves ‘set apart’ from the dominant ideology and system of violence and are, in this sense, ‘holy’ places. They engage in ‘soft’ resistance by refusing to participate in the wider culture’s routinized desecration of animal life in factory farms, laboratories, zoos, circuses, fur farms, and other houses of horror. Sanctuaries are not only sacred spaces, but also 'holy' sites, that is places where animals are made and make themselves hāl or whole again. In animal sanctuaries each animal is 'blessed,' not because they are marked with ''the blood of the sacrifice,' but because they are finally cleansed of such a mark.