Origin of eating fish on Fridays

[alexaustralia]

Hi all,

I’m sure most of you know of the story that the “original” reason why we were to eat fish on Friday was to help the fishing industry in Rome.

Can any one point me to an article explaining when this story was created, for what reasons etc…

Thanks

Alex

 

[LilyM]

Just one of those urban myths I think … after all, most Catholics didn’t live in or near Rome anyway.

By the way, we never have been required to eat fish on Friday, simply not to eat meat. Plenty of people, I’m sure, would’ve just eaten veggies and starches rather than necessarily getting stuck into the fish.

 

[alexaustralia]

Just one of those urban myths I think … after all, most Catholics didn’t live in or near Rome anyway.

By the way, we never have been required to eat fish on Friday, simply not to eat meat. Plenty of people, I’m sure, would’ve just eaten veggies and starches rather than necessarily getting stuck into the fish.

The reason I ask is because a co-wrker has this belief. I have articles explaining the real reason why we abstain from meat but not one rebuking the myth.

 

[Fidelis]

Here’s Catholic Answer’s apologist Jimmy Akin’s answer to this question:

This is one of those things that is hard to verify because of how backwards the situation is. Every year people claim that eating fish on Fridays was introduced to help the Italian fishing industry, but nobody ever comes up with primary source documents to estabish this.

It seems to me that the burden of proof is on the people making this claim. Unless they can produce an original source document saying this, it isn’t worth giving any credence to.

I say the burden of proof is on them because I don’t believe the claim (I think it’s a myth), and the burden of proof is always on the person you disagree with.

It seems to me that the following is far more likely to account for the situation:

Church law is written in Latin.

In Latin the thing we are forbidden to eat on (today certain) Fridays is carnis.

In Latin, carnis means the flesh of warm-blooded, land-dwelling animals.

Since people couldn’t eat carnis, they looked for things similar to *carnis *to eat on Fridays.

Tofu burgers not having been introduced in the West, people started eating fish.

The practice of eating fish became widespread.

People who didn’t know Latin started looking for an explanation of why fish is eaten but not the flesh of land animals.

**The sinful streak in human nature made them want to attribute some kind of self-interested motive to the Church in allowing fish. **

Somebody noticed that forbidding meat on Fridays would have the effect of economically benefitting the fishing industry.

Somebody attributed the allowance of fish to an attempt by the pope to economically benefit the finishing industry.

The rumor spread far and wide because people still have a sinful streak whereby they want to attribute selfish motives to others and, in particular, to the pope.

If there were a requirement that people eat fish on Friday (there ain’t) then one would have a better case for the fishing-industry story, but in the absence of a requirement or any primary source document to the contrary, the above seems to me to be the more likely way to account for the matter.

jimmyakin.org/2005/02/fish_fridays.html

Note something Jimmy points out here:*The burden of proof (in this case historical proof) is on those who make these ridiculous charges.*If not, then Catholics (and other targets of bigotry) will spend all their time refuting any and all of this type of mythical, ignorant junk whenever it rears it’s ugly head. It’s like someone insisting you refute that the events in the Star Wars movies ever happened – why should you?

Learn to say: “That’s an ignorant bunch of horse puckey. You show me proof of what YOU are claiming-- besides your ignorant anti-Catholic tract.”

 

[StMarkEofE]

Hi all,

I’m sure most of you know of the story that the “original” reason why we were to eat fish on Friday was to help the fishing industry in Rome.

Can any one point me to an article explaining when this story was created, for what reasons etc…

Thanks

Alex

Works for me!

 

[alexaustralia]

Learn to say: “That’s an ignorant bunch of horse puckey. You show me proof of what YOU are claiming-- besides your ignorant anti-Catholic tract.”

Thanks for the information. He isn’t anti-catholic is just something he picked up from some where. He is really atheist/agnostic and is very lay back on any religious issues.

Thanks again for the reply though.

Cheers

Alex