I was not raised in a cassock

The Pope visited New York last week, and the clamour and hubbub surrounding his visit reminded me that I have not yet read his biography.

i am glad to hear that the Vatican has a long tradition of nurturing cats: "Though Benedict is the first pope to be written about by a cat, he falls squarely within a long Vatican tradition. According to “The Papacy: An Encyclopedia,” by Philippe Levillain, Pope Paul II, in the 15th century, had his cats treated by his personal physician. Leo XII, in the 1820s, raised his grayish-red cat, Micetto, in the pleat of his cassock. And according to The Times of London, Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978, is said to have once dressed his cat in cardinal’s robes." And now a literary tradition: a childhood friend of the Pope's has written a biography,