# Fish every Friday?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-every-friday/61229>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [April 8, 2001, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-every-friday/61229 "2001-04-08T05:29:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-every-friday/61229/21 "2001-04-12T04:52:50Z")

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> [@](#):
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> I wonder if the Catholic practice of considering fish to not be meat for the purposes of abstinence is rooted in the Jewish origins of Christianity.

A few of us speculated on that when it came up a couple of years ago, but I don’t think we found a definitive answer. It certainly seems plausible to me.

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**Author:** ![Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knighted_Vorpal_Sword)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-every-friday/61229/22 "2001-04-12T12:15:20Z")

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> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by RickG \*  
> \*\*Moadim l’simcha (enjoy the intermediate days of the festival [of Passover]–much more concise in Hebrew, eh?)!  
> Rick \*\*

And a chag samayach/gut yom tov (whichever you prefer) to you too!  
🙂

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-every-friday/61229/23 "2001-04-12T13:12:17Z")

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> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by LateComer \*  
> **RickJay: You’ve just proved to me that Canada is, in fact, Bizarro world. Reading your posts here was like reading somebody say “None of the Protestants I know believe that Jesus Christ is their personal Lord and Savior.”🙂**

I think people in Eastern Ontario might well be the most casual Catholics in the world, in all honesty. It may be the Loyalist influence. We were taught in school that we were supposed to give up something for Lent but nobody took the meat-on-Fridays thing seriously. Geez, what sort of God would want me NOT to eat a big, juicy steak? Tomorrow night, while all thse other Catholics are eating their frozen fish sticks or their veggie burgers, I’m planning on chomping down on a big plate of chicken wings. Or maybe a prime rib. Yum!

Anyway, I was freaked out when I moved to Toronto and went to a Mass and people were saying the Lord’s Prayer with their hands held out, instead of clasped. I’d never seen that before, and commented to Mrs. RickJay (who isn’t a Catholic) “Gosh, that’s the most Baptist-looking thing I’ve ever seen in a Catholic church.” Where I’m from if you did that people would expect you to start speaking in tongues.

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