{"id":5437,"date":"2005-07-14T09:08:50","date_gmt":"2005-07-14T09:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html"},"modified":"2005-07-14T09:08:50","modified_gmt":"2005-07-14T09:08:50","slug":"cool-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html","title":{"rendered":"Cool Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Finally, what we&#8217;ve been waiting for: a more complete treatment of the story that&#8217;s been circulating for a while: <a href=\"http:\/\/msnbc.msn.com\/id\/8219384\/\">The Pope loves cats<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">Previous popes also have kept pets. Pope Leo XII had a dog and a cat. Pope Pius XII kept caged birds in the papal apartment and a goldfish named Gretchen. Pope Paul VI is said to have once dressed his cat in a feline version of cardinal robes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">But currently, Pope Benedict XVI must abide by the rule against pets in Vatican apartments &quot;although one cardinal has a dog and everyone in Rome knows it,&quot; says Mahony.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/cats_in_rome__piazza_s1_pietro.JPG\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Thanks to faithful reader Julia for the photo)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finally, what we&#8217;ve been waiting for: a more complete treatment of the story that&#8217;s been circulating for a while: The Pope loves cats Previous popes also have kept pets. Pope Leo XII had a dog and a cat. Pope Pius XII kept caged birds in the papal apartment and a goldfish named Gretchen. Pope Paul&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cool Cat - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cool Cat - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Finally, what we&#8217;ve been waiting for: a more complete treatment of the story that&#8217;s been circulating for a while: The Pope loves cats Previous popes also have kept pets. Pope Leo XII had a dog and a cat. Pope Pius XII kept caged birds in the papal apartment and a goldfish named Gretchen. Pope Paul&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-14T09:08:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/cats_in_rome__piazza_s1_pietro.JPG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cool Cat - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cool Cat - Via Media","og_description":"Finally, what we&#8217;ve been waiting for: a more complete treatment of the story that&#8217;s been circulating for a while: The Pope loves cats Previous popes also have kept pets. Pope Leo XII had a dog and a cat. Pope Pius XII kept caged birds in the papal apartment and a goldfish named Gretchen. Pope Paul&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-14T09:08:50+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/cats_in_rome__piazza_s1_pietro.JPG"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html","name":"Cool Cat - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/cats_in_rome__piazza_s1_pietro.JPG","datePublished":"2005-07-14T09:08:50+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-14T09:08:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/cats_in_rome__piazza_s1_pietro.JPG","contentUrl":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/cats_in_rome__piazza_s1_pietro.JPG"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/cool-cat.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cool Cat"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}