The chances are you've heard that phrase, probably even used it yourself. But you don't know where it came from. I do. Me. Sadly I can't remember when I first started using it, but my guess is between eight and ten or so years ago, maybe longer. Of course, my daughters don't believe (despite the fact that I don't lie) that I could have come up with such a popular saying. But someone had to be the first, and I tell you it was me. And it wasn't just a simple mindless mixing up of "Is the Pope Catholic?" and do "Bears shit in the woods?" (neither of which I made up, incidentally). But it is, or at least was, as true as both of those statements. I happened to know that the previous pope, John Paul II did actually shit in the woods, and this is why I said it. Naturally, he didn't do it all the time, but when he was hiking through forests for several days at a time, as was his wont, he would have no choice but to defacate there, probably more so before he was pope than after, but still. As far as I am aware this is not true of the present pope.

The reason I said it in the first place was that I was telling my son something that he was not believing, and because it amused me to let him think that he had caught me out on a lie (which he hadn't), I said "Does the Pope shit in the woods?" because I knew that he would think that it confirmed his belief that I had lied, when in fact it confirmed that I was telling the truth. See, little things amuse me.