Sunday, April 24, 2005
POPE BENEDICT'S FRIENDS
There are a lot of stories of him around. This one happens to be my favorite:
The same churchman said that Cardinal Ratzinger was a cat lover. "Every time he met a cat, he would talk to it, sometimes for a long time," said Cardinal Bertone. "The cat would follow him. Once about 10 cats followed him into the Vatican and one of the Swiss Guards intervened, saying 'Look, your eminence, the cats are invading the Holy See'."
It's told even better in this article:
When he was a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI often delivered sermons at the German-language church in Campasanto Teutonico near St. Peter’s Basilica, but his most heartfelt talks might have been the ones he gave after Mass.
“I went with him once,” said Konrad Baumgartner, head of the theology department at Regensburg University. “Afterwards, he went into the old cemetery behind the church.
“It was full of cats, and when he went out, they all ran to him. They knew him and loved him. He stood there, petting some and talking to them, for quite a long time. He visited the cats whenever he visited the church. His love for cats is quite famous.”
Forget theology.
First I want to know if he is giving lessons in "cat". How does he do that? They always run away from me!
