“Why do Catholics eat fish on Friday?” I wondered as I wandered past the fish counter at the local Shaw’s Supermarket.

Actually, Catholics don’t eat so much fish on Fridays anymore, since Pope Paul VI relaxed the rules about Friday being a meat-fast day. That was back in the ’60’s. But before that, all the Catholics in my neighborhood religiously ate fish on Friday. You could always tell it was Friday because the street smelled like haddock and the Catholic kids came around begging us Protestants for a hamburger. When Paul VI vacated the “no meat on Friday” rule my popish buddies were happy. But the fishing industry wasn’t, taking a huge hit as fish prices fell through the floor.

The story-behind-the-story of why Catholics eat/ate fish on Friday goes back to the first century when many Christians fasted to commemorate Jesus’ death on Good Friday. It came to be that the meat from warm-blooded animals was prohibited because Jesus was warm-blooded. Fish are cold-blooded, so….

The practice of eating fish on Friday was widely practiced in the west until the 1500’s when King Henry VIII got the hots for Anne Boleyn. Trouble is, Henry was already married. When the sitting Pope refused to grant Hank an annulment, be broke from Rome and became an Episcopalian. You know what they say about Episcopalians, right? “Where there’s 4 Episcopalians there’s always a fifth.”

Only kidding. On both counts. Episcopalians are not all heavy drinkers. And Henry never became an Episcopalian. He actually started his own church – the Church of England. Those hard-drinking Episcopalians  came along much later.

With himself as the Head of the Church, Hank 8 removed the prohibition against divorce, got himself one and married his hoochy-mama, Anne. And because the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church now hated each other, the Brits did away with all sorts of things that were “popish.” Including eating fish on Fridays.

So that’s why you Catholic kids ate fish on Friday and I didn’t.

Just thought you’d like to know!