I came across the following story on Wikipedia. St. Francis came to a town which was being terrorized by a wolf. It had killed both people and animals. So he went and found the wolf in the hills outside the town, spoke to it and convinced it to stop. Then, because the wolf was only eating out of hunger, St. Francis made a pact with the townsfolk that they would feed the wolf from now on. Then St. Francis baptized the wolf.
This strikes me as so right. It reminds me of a story of the Buddha, in which there was a powerful hungry ghost (yidak) who had many children, and she would go out nightly and kill many beings to feed her children. The Buddha asked her to stop, but she couldn't. Then the Buddha took one of her children and hid it in his begging bowl, where the mother yidak couldn't see it. (Normally yidaks are clairvoyant and can see everywhere.) The mother became so distraught looking all over the place without success that finally she came to the Buddha and asked him if he knew where her child was. He gave her back her child and said, "Look how much suffering you underwent when you could not find your child. Imaging how much suffering other being are undergoing when you kill their children." The mother yidak realized the truth of these words, but asked the Buddha how she could feed her children without killing. In response, Buddha asked his followers to dedicate a bread offering (changbu) after lunch every day to this yidak family, a tradition that continues to this day.
