A Fishy Tale

 

Friend Xerxes, the left-listing columnist, explains recently to his readers that the Catholic Lenten fast is actually because, in late winter and early spring, all the meat was likely rotten, and in older times our misbegotten ancestors had to make do with vegetables. Poor sots.

This is of course ridiculous. Livestock does not die off in the fall, nor do they migrate south. Any peasant who could afford meat at other times of the year could have fresh meat in spring if they so wished. Not to mention the various means of preserving meat without modern refrigeration: smoking, drying, salting. It is fruits and vegetables, the very things permitted by the fast, that would have been in short supply in early spring.

We also have the testimony of early church fathers, St. Jerome, St. Leo the Great, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Isidore of Seville, that the Lenten fast was passed down to us from the apostles.

A similar familiar claim is that the Friday and Lenten fasts were a scheme to support the fishing industry. 

But even in pre-Christian times, religious fasts allowed the eating of cold-blooded animals. Taxonomies were different; in effect, the line then was set at cold versus warm blooded, whereas modern Western vegetarians set it at whether the creature has the ability to move, the plant/animal distinction. The rule in Buddhist vegetarianism is, you do not eat anything that recognizably has a face.

There is, clearly, a general desire to discount fasting as a religious or moral practice. It is reflected in my own experience: people want to believe I am vegetarian for health reasons. They become subtly hostile when they hear it is for moral reasons.

People fear morality. This is the eternal battle.

Have a great Friday.