The Catholic Church vs. Cats

The Catholic Church vs. Cats

~ Pope Gregory IX, who held the papacy from 1227 to 1241 believed that cats embodied Lucifer himself. Gregory based his theory on “evidence” from Conrad of Marburg, a papal inquisitor. Apparently torture produced some pretty convincing confessions from people who worshipped the devil and his black cat. On June 13, 1233, Gregory issued the Vox in Rama, an official papal decree declaring that Satan was half-cat and sometimes took the form of a cat during Satanic masses. Catholics around the the continent began slaughtering any feline that entered their property. History shows that the Black Death, which ravaged Europe in the mid 1300s, was caused by rats and the fleas on them. Which means that killing off the rats’ main predators was probably not the best idea.

~ Pope Innocent VIII came to power in the late 1400s, during the throes of witch crusades in Western Europe. Because the powers that be dictated that the cat composed one of the main identifiers of a witch, the Church officially excommunicated the entire species.

The cat rituals have survived the centuries:

~ In Belgium, an entire festival, Kattenstoet (Festival of the Cats) is a parade in Ypres, Belgium, devoted to the cat. It has been held regularly on the second Sunday of May since 1955. The parade commemorates an Ypres tradition from the Middle Ages in which cats were thrown from the belfry tower of the Cloth Hall to the town square below and burned in the streets.

~ Queen Elizabeth I celebrated her coronation with the burning of a cat-stuffed effigy.

~ “After food, clothing and medicine, the fourth item is cosmetics and the fifth is pets,” Pope Francis said referring to all pets not just cats, referring to a study on where most people’s income goes. “That’s serious. One can love animals, but one should not direct them the affection due only to persons.” So we should probably take a step away from the dog ice cream and cat outfits in the pet aisle.

#Cats #CatholicChurch #Lucifer #Witches