Here is a translation of a little item from a German news agency that is of interest to us:
Pentling (ddp) – Pope Benedict XVI must be worried about his favorite cat Chico.
An unknown cat-hunter has been shooting at cats in Pentling, where the Pope’s private house is located. A lady reported to the police Saturday that the cat-hunter had shot at her cat Max with an air-rifle, and poor Max now lies in coma. The lady claims she has heard the airgun go off several times in the neighborhood.
Rupert Hofbauer, the Pope’s next-door neighbor, caretaker of his house and Chico’s master, confirms that Benedict is a great cat lover, and that even now, he always asks about Chico.
Whenever the then-Cardinal Ratzinger was in Pentlng, Hofbauer recounts, Chico was often in his house.
“Chico would not leave him, so that at times, we had to make an extra effort to bring him home,” he remembers.
Meanwhile, the police see no acute immediate danger for Chico. They say that the gravely-injured Max was shot 1-1/2 kilometers away from the Pope’s house.