Fur flies over Pope’s penchant for ermine

He may be a well-known cat lover, but Pope Benedict's attitude towards the stoat is another matter. His fondness for wearing ermine - the white winter coat of the stoat - has landed him in trouble with an Italian animal rights group that wants him to switch from real fur to synthetic.

The former German cardinal has traditional views on papal dress and has revived the camauro, an ermine-trimmed red velvet hat last worn by Pope John XXIII in the 1960s, as well as wearing an ermine-trimmed cape. "The Pope has often talked about protecting the environment and we are asking that he acknowledges that animals, as God's creation, also deserve respect," says the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals which has launched an online petition (just 2,260 signatures so far) to persuade the pontiff to change his ways.

"Aren't there more important battles to wage?" Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo responded on the Pope's behalf. "There are human beings who merit more urgent assistance that no one is taking care of. And if we eat animals, we can wear them." (Continued below)

Benedict recently authorised a strange biography of himself "written by a cat". It was based on a feline called Chico he adopted when, as plain Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he lived in Germany. In Rome, he then took in a stray he found on the streets. One of the petitioners demands: "The Pope has a cat he loves a lot, so why doesn't he use it for one of his capes?"