In 1233, Pope Gregory IX issued the papal bull Vox in Rama, which described heretical rituals involving a black cat. While the document detailed bizarre ceremonies, it did not explicitly condemn cats or call for their extermination. The association of cats with evil led to superstitions, but there's no concrete evidence linking this to mass cat killings or the spread of the Black Death. The idea that the Pope's actions led to the plague is more myth than fact.​ Source