Did Catholics forbid meat to support the fishing industry, or Protestants?

At some point in your life you have probably been told that the only reason Catholics eat fish on Fridays - at least during the season of Lent - is because a medieval pope - who is never named - had family in the fishing industry - which is also never named - and they needed a financial boost. This claim, of course, is false and is made by those ignorant of history.

I have recently finished reading Ian Mortimer's enjoyable and educational book, The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England (New York: Penguin Books, 2012); his The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is also excellent. Loaded with endnotes, his books are well-researched and documented, and written in a readable, intelligent, and humorous fashion; I cannot recommend them enough.

Of particular interest to me is Mortimer's treatment of religion. These days, it can be difficult to find historians who give religion - especially Catholicism - a fair treatment, but Mortimer does so very well.

In his third chapter on "Religion," for example, we find several important - and historically accurate - observations:

• "In Mary's reign, no fewer than 283 men and women are burned at the stake for maintaining their Protestant beliefs - many of which were called orthodox in Elizabeth's reign. Although Elizabeth's government does not burn as many people as Mary's [N.B.: It was not the Church that killed people, but the state], proscribed views are still enough to get you killed" (61).
• "What is orthodox in 1558 is sufficient to have you hanged in 1570" (61).
• "And propaganda is key. Elizabeth makes sure all history books praise her and Protestantism, and reflect Mary's reign in a negative light" (68).
• "A second act [of Parliament] forbids the importation of [papal] bulls from Rome, as well as crucifixes and rosary beads" (69).
• "Anyone trying to persuade people to join the Catholic Church is held to be guilty of high treason and executed" (70).
• "Catholics are not allowed to travel more than five miles from their homes - on pain of forfeiting all their property and estates" (71).
• "Just thirty-five years see Catholicism change from being the respectable norm to the religion of a persecuted minority" (71).

You will not likely find such clear statements in most history text books, although the statements are entirely true.

Now, then, back to the topic at hand, that of eating fish on Fridays. Before we continue, let it be remembered that Catholics are not required to eat fish on Fridays; rather, they are simply not to eat meat on Fridays (fish is not the only meatless option).

In Mortimer's ninth chapter on "What to Eat and Drink," he includes an informative and useful paragraph about the eating of meat and fish in Elizabethan England, that is, between 17 November 1558 and 24 March 1603 (with my emphases):

Harvest time and fruit picking impose one form of seasonality. Another is entirely artificial. The medieval Church [that is, the Catholic Church] used to restrict the eating of meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, as well as in Advent and Lent and on the vigils on certain saints' feast days. In 1549 Edward VI [a Protestant] reestablishes Fridays and Saturdays as nonmeat days, as well as Lent and other religious feasts.  In 1563 Elizabeth's [also a Protestant] government imposes fasting on Wednesdays too, including a prohibition on slaughtering animals. There is an important difference compared to pre-Reformation [that is, Catholic] times, however: avoidance of meat is no longer a religious observance but secular law. The purpose of fasting on Wednesdays is specifically to encourage the eating of fish, to support the fishing industry. People therefore respond differently. Some households uphold the old religious fasts during Advent and Lent, as if they are still observing the old religious law; others ignore Advent but observe the Lenten fast. Still others ignore Wednesdays and just fast on Fridays and Saturdays. But be careful if you adopt a partial regime: heavy fines are levied for eating meat on nonmeat days. The standard fine is £3 or three months imprisonment, but in 1561 a London butcher slaughtering three oxen in Lent is find £20. Fines can be levied on the head of a household for every single member who breaks the fast, so if you have lots of servants, make sure they obey the law (215).

Did you catch it? The forbidding of the eating of meat in order to support the fishing industry did not arise from the Catholic Church, but from Elizabeth's Protestant/Anglican government. Prior to this decision of Elizabeth's government, the Catholic Church did not forbid the eating of meat to support the fishing industry; rather, the reason for the forbidding of meat was less temporal, much simpler, and more spiritual.

As John Myre explains in his Liber Festivalis, written in the later 1400s: "For when God, for Adam’s sin, cursed the earth and the land, he cursed not the water; wherefore it is lawful for a man to eat in Lent that which cometh of the water."

In fact, centuries earlier, Saint Isidore of Seville, who died in 636, wrote in his De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, "We are certainly able to eat fish, because the Lord accepted one after the resurrection. Neither the savior nor the apostles have forbidden this" (1.45[44].2). The non-eating of meat and the eating of fish was both a penance and a reminder of God's mercy.

In this Jubilee of Mercy, then, do not forget the second spiritual work of mercy, that of instructing the ignorant.

Fish on Fridays: A remembrance of God's mercy and the promise of the resurrection of the body

N.B.: The title to this post has been corrected

Although Catholics are not required to eat fish on every Friday, it has long been customary to do so. Indeed, the custom of eating fish on Fridays and not meat earned Catholics in some parts of the world the disparaging title of "fisheaters."

In the United States of America, such has practice has not been customary since November 27, 1966 when the then-National Conference of Catholic Bishops removed the penalty of sin from the eating of meat on Fridays:

Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ.

Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law. Our expectation is based on the following considerations:

1. We shall thus freely and out of love for Christ Crucified show our solidarity with the generations of believers to whom this practice frequently became,especially in times of persecution and of great poverty,no mean evidence of fidelity to Christ and His Church.
2. We shall thus also remind ourselves that as Christians, although immersed in the world and sharing its life, we must preserve a saving and necessary difference from the spirit of the world. Our deliberate,personal abstinence from meat, more especially because no longer required by law, will be an outward sign of inward spiritual values that we cherish.

Every Catholic Christian understands that the fast and abstinence regulations admit of change, unlike the commandments and precepts of that unchanging divine moral law which the Church must today and always defend as immutable. This said, we emphasize that our people are henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence, except as noted above for Lent. We stress this so that "no"scrupulosity will enter into examinations of conscience,confessions, or personal decisions on this point (Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence, 23-25, emphasis mine).

That being said, the Bishops also expressed their hope that every Friday of the year would find Catholics in the United States of America substituting the non-eating of meat with some other form of perhaps, such as

doing volunteer work in hospitals, visiting the sick, serving the needs of the aged and the lonely, instructing the young in the Faith, participating as Christians in community affairs, and meeting our obligations to our families, our friends,our neighbors, and our community, including our parishes, with a special zeal born of the desire to add the merit of penance to the other virtues exercised in good works born of living faith (27, emphasis mine).

Each of these are worthy, pious, and holy things to do, but, regrettably, this hope has not born great fruit over these past forty-seven years as Catholics generally treat Friday as any other day of the week, if not as a particular day of celebration, in keeping with the secular culture, with little recognition of Christ's love poured out for us on the Cross.

Even so, Catholics in the U.S.A. are still bound by the requirement of canon 1251 to abstain from the eating of meat - in Latin, carnis - at least on the Fridays of Lent.

There is a linguistic reason as to why Catholics are allowed to eat fish on Fridays - even during Lent - and not meat, as Jimmy Akin explains: 

The most fundamental reason, however, is that in Latin and in the major European languages (French, Spanish, etc.), the word for “meat” never includes fish. Since the custom, for the Latin Rite of the Church, arose in Latin and Romance-language areas, it reflects this fact.

In fact, in English at the time arose, the same was true. The word “meat” at that point signified any and all food. To denote what we today call meat, the word “flesh” was used, and it too excluded fish. The system of classification that was used in English divided “meat” into “flesh, fish, and fowl.”

Since that time, the term “meat” has become restricted to what you find attached to the bones of mammals (flesh) and the bones of birds (fowl), and sometimes to what you find attached to the bones of fish, but that use is not universal even today.

In any event, the custom of eating fish but not flesh on Friday stems from this word usage in Western languages, in which there was a division between fish and what we today call “meat.”

For this custom, minimal as it is, Catholics in some parts of the country are still criticized or at least questioned, though they are rarely any longer derogatorily referred to as fisheaters. Sadly, most Catholics do not know how to respond to questions about why we do not eat meat on Fridays during Lent.

The most common objection given against this Catholic practice is that the custom began solely in order to benefit the fishmongers of Rome some centuries ago. This claim, of course, is sheer rubbish, both because Catholics are not required to eat fish (and so such a decree, if there was one, would not really benefit the fishmongers) and because no one who makes such a claim can point to a historical connection or decree. What is more, too, Catholics have been abstaining from meat on Fridays long before anyone attempts to make the fishmonger assertion.

But surely there is more than a linguistic reason as to why we are allowed to eat fish on Fridays? Of course, there is, though - in my estimation - it likely came later.

I've shared before that in his Liber Festivalis [Book of Festivals] (later 1400s), John Myre offered one reason - and to me a convincing one - as to why can eat fish on Fridays:

For when God, for Adam’s sin, cursed the earth and the land, he cursed not the water; wherefore it is lawful for a man to eat in Lent that which cometh of the water.

This has long seemed a good enough reason to me as to why Holy Mother Church permits us to eat fish on Fridays, even on the Fridays of Lent. But if this reason does not convince you, consider this explanation given by Saint Isidore of Seville (d. 636) in his De Ecclesiasticis Officiis:

We are certainly able to eat fish, because the Lord accepted one after the resurrection. Neither the savior nor the apostles have forbidden this (1.45[44].2).

The penances we take up on Fridays are, after all, intended to help us recall the sufferings the Lord willingly endured for us. His suffering, of course, did not end with his Death, but culminated in the Resurrection. The time of our resurrection, though, has not yet come, and so we now willingly take up some form of penance to join our sufferings to his.

If we, then, eat fish and not meat on Fridays as we remember the Lord's death, it can be an opportunity for us not only to give up the pleasure of a steak or a pulled pork sandwich (one of my favorites) but also an opportunity to remember the Lord's mercy and the promise of the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. Amen. 

UPDATE:

Barb, the Franciscan Mom, told me I should include the recipe for a delicious tuna pasta I found in one of Mr. Food's cookbooks:

• 1 lb rainbow rotini (any pasta will work, but this one gives it some color)
• 1 can (6 1/2 oz) solid white tuna, packed in water, drained (I usually use two cans)
• 6-7 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice (freshly squeezed is best, and a little more never hurts)
• 1/2 cup chopped freshly parsley (or 6 teaspoons dehydrated flakes)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (a little more never hurts)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper (a little more never hurts, but not much more)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed (the secret ingredient; again, a little more never hurts, though too much goes too far)

 Not only is it delicious, but it couldn't be easier. In fact, it's maybe too good for Lent!

Bishops of England and Wales restore Friday abstinence

From Zenit (with my emphases and comments:

LONDON, MAY 13, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The bishops of England and Wales are re-establishing the practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays as a penance to identify with Christ on the cross [I hope our Bishops in the USA will do the same].


In the resolutions published from their spring plenary assembly, which concluded Thursday, the bishops announced the re-establishment of the practice, to go into effect Sept. 16.

"Every Friday is set aside by the Church as a special day of penance, for it is the day of the death of our Lord," a statement of resolutions from the assembly reminded. "The law of the Church requires Catholics to abstain from meat on Fridays, or some other form of food, or to observe some other form of penance laid down by the Bishops’ Conference."

"The Bishops wish to re-establish the practice of Friday penance in the lives of the faithful as a clear and distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity," the statement announced.

The prelates added that it is "important that all the faithful be united in a common celebration of Friday penance."

"Respectful of this, and in accordance with the mind of the whole Church, the Bishops’ Conference wishes to remind all Catholics in England and Wales of the obligation of Friday Penance. The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this should be fulfilled by abstaining from meat," the resolution stated.

The prelates said those who do not eat meat normally should abstain from some other food on Fridays [ideally, one they regularly consume].

The date for the re-establishment of meatless Fridays, Sept. 16, marks the anniversary of Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom last year.

"Many may wish to go beyond this simple act of common witness and mark each Friday with a time of prayer and further self-sacrifice," the bishops' statement concluded. "In all these ways we unite our sacrifices to the sacrifice of Christ, who gave up his very life for our salvation."

The universal law of the Church calls for abstinence from meat on every Friday of the year, but each national Conference of Bishops is able to substitute a different penance.  The US Bishops made abstaining from meat every Friday an option, but also allows each member of the faithful to choose a different penance if they choose to eat meat on Fridays.  Most Catholics in the US are sadly unaware of this.