Benedict XVI's Cats (And Papal Pets in general)

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Maximilian75 said:
Perhaps allergies in the papal household?
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I can’t find any justification online, but the rule must be recent. Pope Leo XII had a pet dog and Pope Pius XII had two canaries when they lived in the Vatican.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It appears St Pope JPII was more of a “dog person”
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I used to be a dog person but then I married a cat person. She forced me to undergo a pet change operation… and now we have a cat.

But what my wife doesn’t know, is that I have a secret life and really have bi-pet identity… and secretly play fetch with the border collie across the road 😉

So I ask all here at CAF, am I in a state of grace and can I receive communion with bi-pet identity disorder? 😃
 
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I read once that someone who knew Pope Emeritus Benedict well said the Pope Emeritus doesn’t love cats, it’s more accurate to say he ADORES cats. The Vatican approved a biography of Pope Benedict for children called “Joseph and Chico”. The story is narrated by a cat named Chico who was based on a cat the Pope used to own.
 
Well, I am not a trained Confessor, but it would seem your history as a dog person, plus your forced conversion, would mitigate your culpability in your disordered secret relationship with the neighbor’s dog. I would definitely bring it up in Confession, unless you suffer from scruples (in that case the doubt suffices to excuse you from accusing yourself).
 
But the Pope never answered the Dubia concerning the meaning of sneaking off to enjoy the company of neighborhood animals!
 
Pope Pius xii was known for keeping multiple birds.

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CRM_Brother said:
Pope Pius xii was known for keeping multiple birds.
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I love that picture, it shows a sensitive, human side to Pope Pius XII. We rarely get to see that side of our pontiffs.

In this era of instant gratification and material excess, it is also so comforting to see a man at the pinnacle of the Church’s hierarchy enjoying a simple pleasure admiring one of God’s creatures.
 
My husband claims he doesn’t like cats very much and barely tolerates them. Then we hear this:

“What? Hello Mr. Dopey. Wife he’s making a stupid face. Do you think he’s purring loud enough?” (While petting our cat Biggie who practically adores Daddy.)

“Hello little guy. Hello hello hello.” (While petting our newest addition, Gatsby.)

When asked about it, he claims he’s just pestering Biggie the same way Biggie pesters him, and that he feels sorry for Gatsby. Or else he says he’s just humoring me ;-D

(I think he really likes the cats, he just doesn’t want to admit it.)
 
My husband also claimed to be not real big on the cats, even on the two who got very attached to him and would seek out his attention. Then a few years ago, I adopted, over husband’s objections, this disabled cat with flat feet who ended up not getting along with my other cats, as they would bully him. Husband for some reason got very attached to this disabled cat. Took it on family visits, talked about it all the time to the neighbors. He said he felt sorry for the cat, who was very affectionate and whose previous owner had died. Cat and husband ended up both dropping dead of heart attacks in the night within a few months of each other.
 
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Yep. It sounds like he is undergoing a conversion and is having trouble accepting it. 🙂
 
Tis_Bearself said:
My husband also claimed to be not real big on the cats, even on the two who got very attached to him and would seek out his attention. Then a few years ago, I adopted, over husband’s objections, this disabled cat with flat feet who ended up not getting along with my other cats, as they would bully him. Husband for some reason got very attached to this disabled cat. Took it on family visits, talked about it all the time to the neighbors. He said he felt sorry for the cat, who was very affectionate and whose previous owner had died. Cat and husband ended up both dropping dead of heart attacks in the night within a few months of each other.
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I’m sorry to hear about your husband, you are both in my prayers.

While I was a bit tongue-in-cheek about my “pet change operation”, I have to admit that I too was not so hot on cats as when I was a kid we had a dog at home, and when we first married we had a dog, a border collie that turned out to be more than we could handle. I would tolerate cats but we had a couple of strays turn up that were fairly hard to control, so we couldn’t keep them and they didn’t do anything to improve my opinion about cats. Then one night we came home from a trip to Montreal, about an hour away from us, and there was this little black kitten wandering around our house; we live in the country, surrounded by woods. It was a very cold night in March when we got home (about -20C), the kitten was shivering, and was looking at us with those longing “please help me” eyes. Normally I don’t let strays into the house until they’ve been checked out by the vet, deloused, injected, etc., but there was no way I was going to let this one stay outside, nor in our unheated garage. So I let it in, made sure it had the necessities of life, and got around to taking it to the vet. It was a female and we named it “Princess”.

Well it melted my heart. Gosh I loved that cat. I would have an afternoon nap on a miserable winter day on the sofa by the wood stove and she’d come plop herself down on me and we’d snore/purr together. Alas at about 8 years of age she died of natural causes (heart failure secondary to thyroid issues) and I cried like a baby, I was petting her, trying to comfort her in her last moments.

We’ve had numerous cats since then; alas many of them died by being at the wrong end of the food chain (we have coyotes in the neighbourhood). We adopted a brother and a sister back in 2013 but unfortunately the male died of feline leukaemia. The female was not affected, so we had her vaccinated. We still have her, Ruby, and she’s a great little cat, and does the “snooze with her papa” thing as well!

I love all animals but am particularly fond of Ruby, the cat that I consider the spiritual heir to Princess. She’s an indoor cat except that we let her out in daylight tied to a very long leash and under supervision except in winter (she, like her daddy, hates the cold). We don’t want this one ending up as a coyote meal as my wife and I are both quite attached to her.
 
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