When he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI was periodically called “God’s Rottweiler” because of his duties as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its work of safeguarding Catholic teaching on faith and morals.

 

In that capacity, he was responsible for “correcting the work of some Catholic theologians and ensuring the theological solidity of the documents issued by other Vatican offices,” says a recent OSV News article. 

 

Given that nobody in or out of the Church likes to be corrected — especially on views of faith and morality — he must have endured ongoing hassles for the 24 years he served in that capacity. But he did his job consistently and firmly, holding fast to Church teaching and using “virtually every medium at his disposal — books and Twitter, sermons and encyclicals — to catechize the faithful on the foundational beliefs and practices of Christianity, ranging from the sermons of St. Augustine to the sign of the cross,” to quote that same article.

 

Less known perhaps was the tender love this fierce and firm “rottweiler” had for cats. 

 

To quote another article from OSV News: “Vatican kitties would apparently swarm around him. For example, one day after celebrating Mass at a small church near St. Peter’s Basilica, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger went to the church’s cemetery, which was full of cats, Konrad Baumgartner, an eyewitness and theologian, told Knight Ridder in 2005, (saying), ‘They all ran to him. They knew him and loved him.’”

 

A children’s book, “Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat,” referred to Cardinal Ratzinger’s friend, a neighbor’s orange cat who often wandered into the future pope’s garden at his home near Regensburg. While a cardinal in Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger was known to feed the stray cats that hung around the building where he lived.

 

Pope Benedict XVI never owned a cat, but Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told Vatican Radio in 2005 that cats “were always enchanted when they met him.”

 

Happily, this cat person also honored the rest of God’s creatures. “His comments about how animals must be respected as ‘companions in creation’ earned him high marks with animal welfare groups, including the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,” says the OSV News article, which also notes, “Being pope, however, prevented him from such daily encounters (with cats).”

 

Whenever someone dies, everyone else can only guess at the sacrifices they made in service to God. Giving up interactions with his favorite animal had to be one of many sacrifices for this cardinal when he was elected pope.

 

Our society tends to see ‘promotions’ in the Church as something desired and perhaps pursued, much like as happens in the corporate world. But each new level means more responsibilities, more work and more sacrifices.

 

Pope Benedict XVI was 78 when he was elected pope. So much for a retirement filled with the prayer and study he desired. He resigned at age 85, citing declining strength because of age — a decline that became more evident to others soon thereafter. 

 

By the way, he was made pope three years later than the age 75 cited so often as when bishops, etc., can submit their retirement.

 

Happily, the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican Gardens where Pope Benedict XVI lived in his final years both gave him space for prayer and study and is called “kitty haven” by the OSV News article about cats because of the “good number of friendly, well cared for cats in the area.”

 

Hopefully in retirement this pope emeritus could enjoy those kitties and more truly embody the truer, gentler label he received shortly after he was named pope by one critic who had formerly embraced that “God’s Rottweiler” moniker. 

 

That critic, as I recall, admitted he was beginning instead to see Pope Benedict XVI as God’s “German Shepherd.”

 

Rest in peace, faithful shepherd.