Get Them Before They Get Us

AMERICAN PAPIST TELLS us Why Catholics need to eat fish on Friday - because they are trying to eat us.

For generations, fish knew their rightful place in God's creation because faithful Catholics observed the tradition of eating them en masse every Friday.

Of course, Catholics are ordinarily prohibited from eating meat on Fridays. According to the Code of Canon Law:

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

I bet you thought Vatican 2 got rid of that. Nope. Well, OK, it is a bit nuanced:

Can. 1253 The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.

So what penance do you substitute on Fridays? What, you didn't know you had to do penance?

I must admit that I rarely eat meat, but I absolutely crave thick juicy steaks, barbeque, gyros, bacon, and humongous hamburgers on Fridays, so abstaining from meat really is a penance for me. And the traditional Friday substitute dish hereabouts was fish.

The American Papist article says this lack of traditional piety has consequences:

Anyway, fast-forward to 40 or so years after Vatican II, and it's clear that fish have forgotten our deal. The new generation of fishes, in fact, are now systematically, actively "testing the waters" to see if the time is ripe to have their turn at the top of the food chain.

I, for one, do not welcome our new ichthyic overlords. Here in the Saint Louis region, we have an ideal opportunity to both further Catholic piety and to solve the problem of invasive Asian Carp in our local rivers. This introduced fish species is driving out native fishes, and they are a hazard to river navigation because they are big and they jump right into your boat, as these men demonstrate:

These carp are tasty, easy to catch, and environmentalists hate them. Let's have a Friday fish fry!