Author Topic: "Is the Pope Catholic?" phrase 1st appeared in 1967. (Read 1137 times)

Geremia · « **on:** September 24, 2013, 02:08:21 PM »

From a Google Ngram search in 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008, the phrase "Is the Pope Catholic?" only appears beginning in 1967:

overmind · « **Reply #1 on:** September 24, 2013, 02:54:05 PM »

Shouldn't that be:

"Are the Popes Catholic".

Geremia · « **Reply #2 on:** September 24, 2013, 03:47:53 PM »

Quote from: overmind

Shouldn't that be:

"Are the Popes Catholic".

Haha
That actually doesn't return anything.
I was just curious, though, where the joke "Is the Pope Catholic?" originated, and I discovered in originated in 1967, the same year the first Novus Disordo "Mass" was being celebrated in the Sistine Chapel.

2Vermont · « **Reply #3 on:** September 24, 2013, 04:12:21 PM »

Quote from: Geremia

Quote from: overmind
Shouldn't that be:

"Are the Popes Catholic".
Haha
That actually doesn't return anything.
I was just curious, though, where the joke "Is the Pope Catholic?" originated, and I discovered in originated in 1967, the same year the first Novus Disordo "Mass" was being celebrated in the Sistine Chapel.

LOL. So originally it was probably a real question, not what it has turned into today.

ThomisticPhilosopher · « **Reply #4 on:** September 26, 2013, 08:19:55 PM »

Quote from: Geremia

From a Google Ngram search in 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008, the phrase "Is the Pope Catholic?" only appears beginning in 1967:

Agreed, that is the real year that those who had a sensus Catholicus started scratching their heads. There were some Catholics that never attended the New Mass even after it had been implemented. Of course this is not some contest of who came in first, but I do think that there is a special grace to those who have never participated in the Novus Ordo abomination.

AlligatorDicax · « **Reply #5 on:** September 30, 2013, 07:55:27 PM »

Quote from: Geremia (Sep 24, 2013, 4:47 pm)

I was just curious, though, where the joke "Is the Pope Catholic?" originated, and I discovered in originated in 1967, the same year the first Novus Disordo "Mass" was being celebrated in the Sistine Chapel.

Quote from: 2Vermont (Sep 24, 2013, 5:12 pm)

So originally it was probably a real question, not what it has turned into today.

In the U.S.A., the older Cradle-Catholics who were discombobulated by Vatican II were nevertheless the product of generations of obedient laity, confident that their clergy wouldn't lead them astray. The younger Cradle-Catholics typically welcomed Novus Ordo "guitar Masses" &c. as just another aspect of the excitement of the social change of the '60s.

The subject joke did originally express the more-perceptive laity's exasperation, under the cover of sarcasm. So its sense really was not much different from what it is today.

There was a much earlier joke, which had floated around for decades: "Is the pope Italian?"  It satirized the papacy's centuries-old status as a de facto hierarchical entitlement for Italy & Italians. Readers who were born after Vatican II and the Novus Ordo revolution have grown up without any sense of how alien a concept it was for the Sacred Conclave to elect a nonItalian as pope. Yet now the Novus Ordo has 3 in a row: Polish, German, and Argentinan. It's too soon to've forgotten that iconoclastic forecasts swirling around the latter conclave favored election of a nonhyphenated African.

Geremia · « **Reply #6 on:** September 30, 2013, 09:42:32 PM »

Quote from: AlligatorDicax

It's too soon to've forgotten that iconoclastic forecasts swirling around the latter conclave favored election of a nonhyphenated African.

:confused1:

Nadir · « **Reply #7 on:** September 30, 2013, 09:51:30 PM »

I believe that the expression "Is the Pope Catholic?" was not ever meant to be a joke but another way of saying "Aren't you stating the obvious?" - the obvious being, back in 1967, that the Pope must be Catholic.

However the expression has taken on a completely different meaning today. Now it is a real question which any Catholic could and should ask himself. Many do not dare to ask the question for fear of coming up with the "wrong" answer" and all that that might entail.

Geremia · « **Reply #8 on:** September 30, 2013, 10:00:17 PM »

Quote from: Nadir

I believe that the expression "Is the Pope Catholic?" was not ever meant to be a joke but another way of saying "Aren't you stating the obvious?" - the obvious being, back in 1967, that the Pope must be Catholic.

Yes, but what adds to the humor is the possible irony/sarcasm.

claudel · « **Reply #9 on:** October 01, 2013, 10:15:06 AM »

Quote from: Nadir

I believe that the expression "Is the Pope Catholic?" was not ever meant to be a joke but another way of saying "Aren't you stating the obvious?" …

Absolutely correct! Among smart-alecky teens it frequently went hand in hand with "Does a wild bear s**t in the woods?" Both phrases represent pretty much the outer limit of the typical American's understanding of over-the-counter, off-the-rack ironic wit, at least when it is unaccompanied by a dancing banana or similar blunt object.

Quote from: Nadir

… However the expression has taken on a completely different meaning today. Now it is a real question …

Indeed it is. I wrote more or less these very words on another, equally foolish thread last week.

I wish this thread could be renamed "Clueless and Proud of It." Had the original poster or anyone else commenting prior to Nadir simply walked away from the idiotic search engine for half an hour and asked a living, breathing, human Catholic over sixty or so about "Is the Pope Catholic?" he would have learned that it was in common use among adults, in precisely the manner Nadir described, in the fifties and doubtless much earlier. In other words, yakking on about the origins and deep inner meaning [sarcasm alert!!!] of the original expression is an utter waste of time. The sole interesting thing, as Nadir indicated here and I did earlier, is that thanks to the post–Vat II popes, His Humbleness especially, the query has had a very creepy frisson added to it.

Quote from: AlligatorDicax

… There was a much earlier joke, which had floated around for decades: "Is the pope Italian?" It satirized the papacy's centuries-old status as a de facto hierarchical entitlement for Italy & Italians. Readers who were born after Vatican II and the Novus Ordo revolution have grown up without any sense of how alien a concept it was for the Sacred Conclave to elect a non-Italian as pope. …

Just so.

AlligatorDicax · « **Reply #10 on:** October 01, 2013, 12:42:45 PM »

Quote from: claudel (Oct 01, 2013, 11:15 am)

I wish this thread could be renamed "Clueless and Proud of It." Had the original poster or anyone else commenting prior to Nadir simply walked away from the idiotic search engine for half an hour and asked a living, breathing, human Catholic over sixty or so [....]

Ahem. That's a criterion that I satisfy myself, having admitted, elsewhere, to receiving First Communion before the opening of Vatican II. Altho' I'm aware that not every detail from 1/2 century ago remains in sharp focus.

I was surprised that the subject question would not have been attested much earlier, before V-II would've become a confounding issue.

So I believe that it's very significant to the question's implications that it didn't appear in a published work until 1967: the 2nd year after Vatican II had been concluded (1965). The question must've dodged even the popular nontheological humor-oriented book Wit & Wisdom of Good Pope John (1964)

.  I'd certainly like to learn the title of the work in which it did first appear.

Quote from: claudel (Oct 01, 2013, 11:15 am)
[...] about "Is the Pope Catholic?" he would have learned that it was in common use among adults, in precisely the manner Nadir described, in the fifties and doubtless much earlier.

Yet the earlier nationality-focused question did not need replacement for more than a decade after the subject question was first attested: The popes remained monotonously Italian until 1978, when J.P.-II was elected. The suspiciously short-sitting J.P.-I (1978) was the last of the Italians. Perhaps referring to the pope's nationality made it too difficult for the average Protestant, Jєω, or atheist on-the-street.

Quote from: claudel (Oct 01, 2013, 11:15 am)
[...] yakking on about the origins and deep inner meaning [...] of the original expression is an utter waste of time.

For many, but not for all: I suspect that in some field(s) of the ~~ soft ~~ social sciences, its analysis could serve as the topic for an acceptable master's thesis, if not a Ph.D. dissertation. Sigh.

------
Note *:
Quote from: [i
Wit & Wisdom of Good Pope John[/i]]Interviewer: "Your Holiness, how many people work here in the Vatican?"
John XXIII: "Oh, about half of them."

claudel · « **Reply #11 on:** October 01, 2013, 02:25:04 PM »

Quote from: AlligatorDicax

Quote from: claudel (Oct 01, 2013, 11:15 am)
… Had the original poster or anyone else commenting prior to Nadir simply walked away from the idiotic search engine for half an hour and asked a living, breathing, human Catholic over sixty or so [....]

Ahem. That's a criterion that I satisfy myself, having admitted, elsewhere, to receiving First Communion before the opening of Vatican II. Altho' I'm aware that not every detail from 1/2 century ago remains in sharp focus. …

I had excluded you from the general chastisement you quote in my mind, but I failed to do so where it counts: here on the page. Mea culpa.