"Does the Pope Shit in the Woods? Is a Bear Catholic?"

In recalling the old rhetorical saw “Does a bear shit in the woods?” (meaning, “No kidding, that’s so obvious!”) and the corollary, “Is the Pope Catholic?”, I am driven to scour the meaning out from behind the surface.

First, it seems obvious that a bear shits in the woods. However, this may not be the case. A bear might shit in the meadow rather than the woods. The point is, our relative distance from the natural world shields us from this knowledge. Is this so obvious after all? If it is counter to the obvious, then is this an ironic joke, playing on what isn’t so obvious?

Likewise, “Is the Pope Catholic?” might a sly reference to non-Catholic behavior on the part of the Pope and/or Catholic clergy. In previous days, the Pope was not so much Catholic (read religious) as he was a political powerbroker. And, do non-Catholic behaviors make a Pope non-Catholic? This rhetoric might be commenting on the proclivities of non-pious popery.

So we come to the inversions: first, “Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Well, this is a good question. No one contemplates a shitting Pope, so this is a clever undercutting of the religiosity and pomp of the Vatican. For one thing, no Pope ever enters the woods, so no, there won’t be any Pope shit in the woods. This then becomes a reverse-rhetorical question – of course its not true. But, does it hint at Papal malfeasance? Comment upon the habit of Popes in making big, mistaken proclamations? One thinks of the recent statement of the Pope about Islam. Surely, he was “shitting in the woods” big time.

And again, “Is the Bear Catholic?” This is the most intriguing of all. This, I think, refers to the longevity of religion in the atheistic Soviet Bloc. Ivan, “the Bear” symbolizing the Russian State, indeed retained his religion in secret through Lenin, Stalin, et al. While much of Russia is Eastern Orthodox, there is a great deal of Catholicism in the former states of the Soviet Union. Yet, due to the proliferation of Eastern Orthodoxy, this question might be a resounding “No”. The Bear is not Catholic, He is Orthodox.

Next: a review of the braille version of Little Annie Fanny