By: Vickie J. Rubinson
Pope Digs Cats.
According to an article in today's New York Times, the Pope is a long time cat lover and his kindness toward the strays of Rome is already the stuff of Vatican legend. His house in Germany, its garden guarded by a cat statue, was filled with cats when Benedict lived there full time before he was posted to the Vatican in 1982.
"I think it shows a sensitive side and I believe it shows that God lives in a person," said Jan Fredericks. "I think all leaders should have a compassion for animals."
Pope Benedict falls squarely within a long Vatican tradition. According to "The Papacy: An Encyclopedia," Pope Paul II, in the 15th century, had his cats treated by his personal physician. Leo XII, in the 1820s, raised his grayish red cat, Micetto, in the pleat of a cassock. And according to the Times of London, Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978, is said to have once dressed his cat in cardinal's robes!
When Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the German newspaper Bild wrote, he tended to the cats that frequented the garden of the congregation's building in the Vatican and even bandaged their wounds.
Cardinal Bertone told an Italian newspaper in 2005 that the cats sometimes walked him to his office.
"One time the Swiss Guards had to intervene," Cardinal Bertone joked. "Look your eminence, the cats are laying siege to the Holy See!"
Italian media reported that when the pope moved to his papal quarters, he could not bring two beloved cats--notwithstanding the protests of Rome's animal rights commissioner who urged the Vatican to "give the two papal cats access to the Apostolic Palace."
Pope Digs Cats.
According to an article in today's New York Times, the Pope is a long time cat lover and his kindness toward the strays of Rome is already the stuff of Vatican legend. His house in Germany, its garden guarded by a cat statue, was filled with cats when Benedict lived there full time before he was posted to the Vatican in 1982.
"I think it shows a sensitive side and I believe it shows that God lives in a person," said Jan Fredericks. "I think all leaders should have a compassion for animals."
Pope Benedict falls squarely within a long Vatican tradition. According to "The Papacy: An Encyclopedia," Pope Paul II, in the 15th century, had his cats treated by his personal physician. Leo XII, in the 1820s, raised his grayish red cat, Micetto, in the pleat of a cassock. And according to the Times of London, Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978, is said to have once dressed his cat in cardinal's robes!
When Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the German newspaper Bild wrote, he tended to the cats that frequented the garden of the congregation's building in the Vatican and even bandaged their wounds.
Cardinal Bertone told an Italian newspaper in 2005 that the cats sometimes walked him to his office.
"One time the Swiss Guards had to intervene," Cardinal Bertone joked. "Look your eminence, the cats are laying siege to the Holy See!"
Italian media reported that when the pope moved to his papal quarters, he could not bring two beloved cats--notwithstanding the protests of Rome's animal rights commissioner who urged the Vatican to "give the two papal cats access to the Apostolic Palace."
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