UNKNOWN to many, German shepherd Pope Benedict XVI is a lover of cats. Agnes Heindl, the Ratzingers’ housekeeper for 10 years, had known the Pope well to describe him as much like St. Francis of Assisi, the saint who loved animals.
“When we were on vacation, 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.”
Karl Baumgartner, head of the theology department at Regensburg University once went with then Cardinal Ratzinger to the old cemetery behind Campasanto Teutonica, a church in Rome.
“It was full of cats, and when he went out, they all ran to him,” Baumgartner said. “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.”
Also, the pianist-Pope is a lover of Mozart’s music. Seconds after his first papal address, Benedict, while dining with his Cardinals, began a mini-concert of Mozart’s compositions.
“It is so luminous yet so deep,” he once said of Mozart’s Music. “It contains the whole tragedy of human existence.” Kris P. Bayos and Llanesca T. Panti
