Holy Smokes

A Short and Smoking History of Recent Popes 

"Benedict XIV was a snuff-taker. He is said to have once offered his snuffbox to the head of some religious order, who declined to take a pinch of snuff, saying, “Your Holiness, I do not have that vice,” to which the pope replied, “It is not a vice. If it were a vice you would have it.”

Pius IX was an inveterate snuff-taker, and was so effusive and constant in it that he often had to change his long white soutane a few times a day—it was white, after all, and the snuff dust would settle on it. He offered snuff, and snuff-boxes to visitors.

Leo XIII favored snuff. Before he became pope, he had served for a time as papal nuncio in Brussels and enjoyed the conversation and company of the cultured and easy-going aristocrats there. One evening at dinner, a certain Count, who was a Freethinker, thought he would have a little fun at the nuncio’s expense, and he handed him a snuff box to examine, which had on its cover a miniature painting of a beautiful nude Venus.  “The men of the party watched the progress of the joke, and as for the Count he was choking with laughter, until the Nuncio deferentially returned the box with the remark: ‘Very pretty, indeed, Count. I presume it is the portrait of the Countess?’”

Pius X (our favorite pontiff) took snuff and smoked cigars.

Benedict XV did not smoke and did not like others’ smoke.

Pius XI smoked an occasional cigar.

Pius XII did not smoke.

John XXIII smoked cigarettes.

Paul VI was a non-smoker.

So was John Paul I, though Vatican officials appeared to hint—just after his sudden, perplexing death—that his final ill health might be due to heavy smoking.

John Paul II did not smoke.

Pope Benedict XVI reportedly does (or once did), apparently favoring Marlboros."

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1762/in_the_habit_a_history_of_catholicism_and_tobacco.aspx