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“The street talk that the pope loves cats is incorrect. The pope adores cats.” - Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles who was in Rome for the pope’s inauguration, revealed the truth about Benedict's love of kitties


L''Osservatore Romano/AP Photo

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MSNBC also reported: “According to local news reports, the pope used to walk the streets of Borgo Pio, his former Roman neighborhood just east of the Vatican, where neighbors likened him to Dr. Dolittle with a Pied Piper charm. Stray cats would run to him when they saw him coming and he used to prepare food for them daily on special plates.” (http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/)

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Ratzinger says that while growing up, the pope and his family always had cats. But now, he says, the only cats in his own home are a “collection of porcelain plates with painted cats on them, mementos from different European vacations with my brother.” (http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/)

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The Knight-Ridder News Agency reported in April 2005 that the theologian Karl Baumgartner had once accompanied the cardinal to a cemetery behind Campasanto Teutonica, a church in Rome. He recalls that “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.” (http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/)

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The Kansas City Star reported that “[His housekeeper] pointed up a staircase to a wall full of painted plates, each depicting a different cat. The brothers collected the plates together, she said. ‘When we were on vacation, a cat, a little kitten, would come by, and he’d be giddy, almost giggling with joy,’ she said. ‘Cats love him; they always go to him straight away. And he loves them back.’” (http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/)

http://conservationcubclub.com/


Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that the Pope talks to cats whenever he sees them, “Every time he met a cat he would talk to it, sometimes for a long time.” Bertone wondered if the Pope used a special language to talk to cats. “I tried to understand the language he used with cats, who were always enchanted when he met them. I thought maybe it was a Bavarian dialect. I don’t know.” (http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/)

Contessina - already in residence at Mater Ecclesiae, the residence of the pope emeritus

joseph alois ratzinger (pope benedict XVI), with siblings and their cat

Pope Leo XII (1760-1829)

Pope Leo owned a grayish-red cat with black stripes called Micette, who was born in the Vatican and lived with the Pope.  Reportedly,  the pope occasionally gave audiences with the cat hidden on his lap under his robes.

St. Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I, 540-604) possessed no worldly goods except a cat, which he held and stroked while meditating.

Sandy Robins/Special to MSNBC.com
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles is a cat-lover, too. Here, he's shown with his feline Gabriel, who is named after the angel.