Pope gregory ix black cats

Popes can be weird, especially popes from centuries ago. 

There’s the anti-Semitic and proud of it, Pope Paul IV, from 1555; then there’s the pope who threatened to burn Galileo at the stake for figuring out the earth revolves around the sun, Pope Urban VIII in 1633.

There’s also Pope Leo X in 1513 who sold spots to heaven. 

There’s even a whole Wikipedia page on bad popes but today we’re talking about a pope who created an urban legend… Pope Gregory IX who declared the war on cats!

Today we’re looking at the urban legend of Pope Gregory IX's hatred of cats that led to the mass extermination of the furry little guys.

Pope Gregory IX

Let’s start this story with the urban legend that is actually propagated on a few different websites and books, mainly because of misinterpretations or assumptions.

The legend starts with Pope Gregory IX issuing a Vox in Rama, which is a papal bull, or like a really angry tweet f