My NEW Taki’s column: Is This Pope Catholic?

“JOOOOOOOOZZZ!!” get a break this week!

Such are the epochal times we’re living in that even timeworn truisms are at risk of obsolescence.

Take “Is the Pope Catholic?” Those of a certain age may prefer Steve Martin’s absurdist gloss—“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”—but the original has been every wise guy’s idea of a witticism for as long as I’ve been alive, and presumably longer.

But I’m not the first to wonder if the election of Pope Francis has rendered the phrase extinct. Great news for anyone whose taste in conversation veers away from the Runyonesque, but obviously not so great news for, you know, the Church.

Years ago, I would have cared more.