bdsambo:
Why is it that we as Catholics believe that fish is not meat?
In part, it’s because canon law in the Western tradition uses the term “carno” (meat) and the word for fish is “piscis|es.”
In the early Christian centuries, fast and abstinence were very much intertwined, and the objects of abstinence varied. It was Pope Gregory (d 604) who described the practice in Rome as abstention from flesh meat, and those things that are derived from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs (in a letter to Saint Augustine and the monks whom he “missioned” to England).
This entered the tradition of Church law. Still there was dispute (in those ages with a different view of how to classify animals than ours) as to what exactly this “carno” was. Generally, carno was associated with the animals thought to have “warm blood.” In some places, water fowl and mammals associated with water (otters, seals, eg.) were not considered “carno” as they were considered “cold blooded.” (Downriver Detroiters have an interesting history with muskrats and Lent.) It was a disputed issue.
However, Eastern traditions included broader abstinence, e.g. from fish and olive oil. An Eastern Catholic would be better equipped to address that.
bdsambo:
And so many of us each a huge piece of fried fish on Fridays as if this is making a sacrifice. Doesn’t sound like the spirit of any tradition of law to me.
I came from a family which, in my opinion, had an overly zealous appreciation of fish. In Lent, they settled for tuna casseroles and cod cakes rather than the blue plate specials. For me as a child, eating fish was a penance. Especially salted cod, soaked in water overnight, and made into cod cakes. Fortunately, my dog had quite an appreciation of cod cakes. Today, giving up meat and fish would be no penance at all for me. I’ll have to skip soyburgers and cheese, I think.
Now, it is true that the positive (or written) law specifies only a minimum in abstention from meat (carno). However, we do know that the precept to do penance is of divine origin. “Divine law requires the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way” ( canon 1249, in part).
In fact the US Bishops have spoken to this. Refraining from meat on the days of obligatory abstinence is still binding as “law”, but we should strive for more. “Accordingly, since the spirit of penance primarily suggests that we discipline ourselves in that which we enjoy most, to many in our day abstinence from meat no longer implies penance, while renunciation of other things would be more penitential.” ( “On Penance and Abstinence, Pastoral Statement of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops” (November 18, 1966; available at
catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=5303)
What has happened is the shift in emphasis from the external regulation of behavior by positive law, to one which recognizes the additional component of that interior spirit of penance. If conscience leads an individual, to abstain from fish or cheese (which they might really enjoy) as well as from meat, then the person, arguably, is morally bound to do so.
