www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Attn Cat Lovers, Pope Benedict XVI - Loves Cats

From the Forest Murmurs Blog...

The Pope loves the stray animals


As Joseph Ratzinger said in April 2005, following the funeral of his friend, Pope John Paul II, he finally after 24 years in Rome would go back to Germany, because he had a plan: to write stories, stories about cats.



Joseph Ratzinger has had cats around him for decades, not least when he was leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Congregation lies on what was once one of the busiest streets of Rome, the Via Aurelia. On this street every day, cats are injured. Not a few of the animals are carried into the garden of the nearby Congregation. There resided Ratzinger, then Cardinal, who took care of moving the cats. He fed them with milk when they were hungry, dressed their wounds, watched as they lay in the sun and slowly recovered. And he gave them all a name.




About these cats, he wanted to write. But his election of Pope stopped these plans. As Pope Benedict XVI, from then on, he had to take care of the great Universal Church instead of the small cats on the Via Aurelia.



The responsibility weighs particularly heavily at present on the 81-year-olds. Bishop Cornelius Korir of Eldoret in Kenya reported today to the Pope on the phone from the battlefield: "They have burnt down a church in which there were 200 people. Children and the elderly were trampled down and burned.




"The Pope does not even take the normal short Christmas holiday in Castel Gandolfo. He worked on without Christmas holidays. In the coming year, he must travel in the United States, Australia, and to Lourdes in France and has to prepare a speech on Monday to the diplomatic corps.




But little has changed in his friendship with the cats of the Vatican.





I park my motorcycle on the way to my office at the Vatican always at the border crossing- the Paul VI Audience Hall. Swiss Guards keep watch there. If previously scattered animals tried to get into the garden of the Vatican, they shooed the animals away.


But when the guardsmen now see a cat, then they let it simply into the beautiful gardens of the Pope. Because they know that Benedict XVI, if he praying in the afternoon at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Vatican, is always pleased when he sees a cat. Because then he returns to his old dream: that he did not want to be Pope, but planned instead to write cat stories.

james

Thankyou for the story. I have not been a fan of His Holiness, but if he loves cats I must reassess my position.

Finally, a topic full of catty remarks!

I knew there was a reason I liked this man!

Fr David Straut
Very happy with his tan tabby cat Tristan.

Now that remark is a catastrophe!

Fr David

I'm surprised that no one has made mention of Roamin' CAT-olics as yet . . .

Just so everyone knows, I'm donating my old auto clunker to a cat rescue shelter . . .

And although Anhelyna may be upset that I'm using words from another language, here is a greeting to the Administrator that only he and a few others will understand - MEOWWW!

Alex

Or Cafeteria Cat-licks

My cat loves to lick yogurt.

I thought Cat-licks refered to what happens after one guy says to the other guy "my cat can beat up your cat"

First it was that fabulous book Jesus of Nazareth and now I find out he's a true cat lover!That clinches it, this pope's a keeper.I can just see those Swiss guardsmen,bowing as the cats pass into the gardens.

You know there's a no returns policy on popes, don't you?

Whan one spends time in a country like Italy or Greece, one does indeed start to become fond of cats...even 'dog people' like me...

Because of the stray dogs one encounters there, dogs start becoming unappealing. Dogs that are not taken care of by man are pathetic creatures, and nothing like how we see dogs here in the U.S. It is very sad. They long for masters to take care of them, they are unkempt, dirty, sometimes have wounds (as one dog did that I will never forget in the main square of Napoli, Italy) and they are often hungry. They completely lack the personality of house dogs as we know and love them because of their hard lives on the streets. They become sad, frightened, suspicious, and cautious. Southern Mediterranean countries generally did not need the various working talents of dogs the way that Northern countries have...So it becomes obvious that dogs NEED man desperately to take care of them, and fortunately in many parts of the world, man has also needed them so a good synergy evolved...

On the other hand, stray street cats are clean, independent and can more or less take care of themselves...that is why Italians and Greeks are generally more 'cat' people than 'dog' people.

That is why I completely understood the fondness Pope Benedict has in for cats in Rome. I bet that back home in Germany he was also fond of dogs.

All in all, when one has great love in their hearts for God's creatures, both canine and feline will fall within the boundaries of that love. I would expect nothing less from the kind soul of Pope Benedict XVI.

Alice