Apparently the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was once presented with a Ratzinger Fan Club t-shirt, enjoyed it, but claimed he couldn’t keep it because he couldn’t be his own fan:
“He was humble, outgoing and laughed at a T-shirt that read ‘The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club.’“That’s how Chris Haehnel, 15, of St. Charles, remembers his visit in Rome with the man who Tuesday became Pope Benedict XVI.
[...]
“Chris, then a freshman at Duchesne High School in St. Charles, already had studied Ratzinger and papal politics. He said he liked Ratzinger’s conservative stands on moral issues. He gave Ratzinger a T-shirt he bought from an online fan club.
“On the front, it read ‘The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club. Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981.’ Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and combating heresy was part of his job.
“Ratzinger laughed at the shirt, Chris said, but said he couldn’t keep it because he couldn’t be his own fan. When he flipped over the shirt to find a quote attributed to him — ‘Truth is not determined by a majority vote’ — he laughed again and said, ‘That’s true. That’s true.’ Chris still has the shirt.”
