When you’re as old as the Catholic Church, you’re going to have picked a lot of fights — and some are more absurd than others.
Sean Gallup / Getty Images
There are two types of people in this man : cat people , and not computerized axial tomography masses .
Pope Gregory IX , who held the pontificate from 1227 to 1241 , most definitely fell in the second pack — largely because he believed that the fluffy hairball - cyberpunk embodied Lucifer himself .
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Gregory base his hypothesis on “ grounds ” from Conrad of Marburg , a papal interrogator . Apparently torturing produce some jolly convincing confession from mass who worshipped the devil and his black African tea .
On June 13 , 1233 , Gregory publish theVox in Rama , an prescribed apostolical decree declare that Satan was half - quat and sometimes took the form of a khat during Satanic masses .
Before the prognosis of burning at the stake for hold contact with the purring dearie , Catholics around the the continent set about mow down any feline that entered their property . We may still see the force of the aggregated khat carnage today : It ’s been propose that the small black bozo population in Europe today is a unmediated termination of that strain being deemed particularly devil - like .
Of naturally , the Bubonic Plague also motivated the pussycat putting to death , as many believed that true cat germs contributed to the plague ’s bedspread .
However , account point that the Black Death , which ravage Europe in the mid 1300s , was actually induce by rats and the fleas on them . Which think that killing off the rats ’ independent predators was probably not the best idea .
The Church ’s feline foible did n’t stop with Gregory , however . Pope Innocent VIII come up to power in the former 1400s , during the throe of witch crusade in Western Europe . Because the powers that be dictated that the true cat composed one of the main identifiers of a crone , the Church formally excommunicated the entire species .
khat burning and other forms of Caterpillar hating have live the centuries since .
In Belgium , an entire festival , Kattenstoet , is dedicated to throwing cats from building and burn them in the street . Queen Elizabeth I keep her coronation with the combustion of a cat - stuffed effigy .
Even today , the Vatican still throw shade at cats . But this time , Pope Francis is focusing on all pet – saying that people spend way too much money on furred booster .
“ After nutrient , wearable and medicament , the fourth item is cosmetic and the 5th is pets , ” he say , pertain to a study on where most citizenry ’s income go . “ That ’s serious . ”
And though it ’s improbable that history ’s most pro - instinctive environment Vicar of Christ will encourage qat bonfire , he does intimate we take a step out from the frankfurter methamphetamine hydrochloride cream and cat equip in the pet gangway .
“ One can lie with brute , ” the Catechism say . “ One should not direct them the affection due only to persons . ”
Want more crazy cat fact ? Learnhow cat first spread around the world . Not a cat-o'-nine-tails person ? Hera aresix really weird pets that you could actually own .
