{"id":2326,"date":"2008-02-29T10:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-29T10:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/ladies-and-gentlemen-benny-bear-updated.html"},"modified":"2008-02-29T10:59:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-29T10:59:00","slug":"ladies-and-gentlemen-benny-bear-updated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/ladies-and-gentlemen-benny-bear-updated.html","title":{"rendered":"Ladies and gentlemen: Benny Bear — UPDATED"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pope’s upcoming trip now has an official souvenir. <\/p>\n

From a sidebar in USA Today: <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The first officially announced souvenir for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit is a tiny T-shirt for a teddy bear, says Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. The shirt will be sold only at six Washington, D.C.-area Build-A-Bear Workshop stores. “It’s cute. It’s fun. It brings the Holy Father into secular culture and lets parents go into a family-friendly store and do something related to their faith,” Gibbs says.<\/p>\n

A bear to wear the shirt costs $10 to $20. The Christ Our Hope logo T-shirt costs $6, and a portion of the shirt sales will help pay for the pope’s trip.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE:<\/B> A reader in Quebec expressed amazement that such a cuddly creature would be picked for, in his words, “the unflinching Inquisitor.”<\/p>\n

But a little research reveals that the venerable bear has appeared before in connection with the pontiff — most notably, on his coat-of-arms<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pope’s upcoming trip now has an official souvenir. From a sidebar in USA Today: The first officially announced souvenir for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit is a tiny T-shirt for a teddy bear, says Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. The shirt will be sold only at six Washington, D.C.-area Build-A-Bear Workshop stores. “It’s cute.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pope-and-bishops","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"\nLadies and gentlemen: Benny Bear - UPDATED - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/ladies-and-gentlemen-benny-bear-updated.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ladies and gentlemen: Benny Bear - UPDATED - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The pope’s upcoming trip now has an official souvenir. From a sidebar in USA Today: The first officially announced souvenir for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit is a tiny T-shirt for a teddy bear, says Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. 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