The bigger Benedict bear also features the popular “growling voice” the toys make when cuddled. Hermann published an audio recording of the iconic sound on its website.
The smaller edition of the Benedict bear is stuffed with cotton instead of wood shavings, making it somewhat cuddlier.
Selling for about $53, it comes with a small scroll on which “a true story about the childhood of Benedict XVI, told in the style of the childhood memories of George Ratzinger, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI,” is written.
The scroll tells the “true story” of how a 2-year-old Joseph Ratzinger, growing up in rural Bavaria, always wanted a teddy bear he saw in a local toymaker’s shop window. The little boy was devastated to see the toy had disappeared just before Christmas — only to discover the Christ Child had left it under the Christmas tree for him a few days later.
The Bavarian toymaker has produced a variety of teddy bears commemorating “popes, saints, and religious,” CNA Deutsch reported, including St. John Paul II and Pope Francis as well as St. Teresa of Calcutta. For fans of the legendary Swiss Guard, there is a teddy bear version complete with the iconic halberd — and also two models of a certain German monk by the name of Martin Luther.
