Q. Can you please explain why Catholics can eat fish when they are asked to abstain from meat? Isn't fish "meat," too?
-- L.R., of O'Fallon
A. I wondered the same thing when I was growing up.
My family wasn't Catholic, but we always abstained from meat on Good Friday. We either went to Gantner's for fried fish or my mom would whip up some mac 'n' cheese and open a can of salmon.
Like you, I would inevitably ask, "But, Mom, why isn't fish meat?" She never had what I considered a terribly satisfying answer so I think I stuck with peanut butter a couple of years rather than put my soul in jeopardy. I didn't want Satan one day saying "Unholy mackerel!" to explain why I was spending eternity in Hades.
Now I find there are distinctions between the two, and the best and clearest explanations I've discovered come from the Rev. Christopher Ferrer at St. John Catholic Church in Austin, Texas.
The fundamental reason, he says, is that in Latin (and some other major European languages) -- the word for meat does not include fish. So, when Pope Nicholas I in the mid 800s decreed that Catholics should abstain from meat on Friday (according to the Catholic Encyclopedia), the ban did not include fish.
"Since the custom, for the Latin rite of the church, arose in Latin and Romance areas, it simply reflects this linguistic fact," he said.
Think about it. If you would eat ants or grasshoppers, you would be technically eating the flesh of a living creature, but would you consider it meat? Probably not. Similarly, many still draw a line between fish and mammals/fowl.
If that doesn't satisfy you, maybe this will: If you've ever noticed those fish symbols on cars, you know that the fish is a symbol of Christ. By eating fish, Ferrer says, you are symbolically nourishing yourself with Christ even while showing your penance by denying yourself other forms of meat.
Centuries ago, that denial was a particularly big deal. Now, of course, good fish often costs more than steak, but years ago, meat was harder to come by than fish. So, by denying yourself this treat, you were going the extra mile to show God how sorry you were for your sins.
Thus, the dividing line remains between creatures that live primarily in water and those that make their home on land. That means eating fish (and, yes, even Flipper, if you must) is OK, while beef, pork and fowl are off-limits. (You'll just have to let conscience be your guide on something like frog legs, I suppose.)
Before you ask, butter, milk, cheese, lard -- even consommé, chicken broth and eggs-- are permissible because they are not considered "flesh," Ferrer says. And, before you continue to spread a rumor that never seems to die, no, it is not true that some unnamed pope ordered people to eat fish on Fridays to boost a sagging fish market. In fact, no pope has ever ordered the consumption of fish -- only the abstention from meat, Ferrer stresses.
Q. We have all heard about "signing on the dotted line." What's the origin of the phrase?
-- Alvin Hesse
A. The only explanation that I would put my John Hancock on goes like this:
In the early 20th century, contracts were commonly typed with a broken or dotted line for your signature. It was designed to help draw your eye quickly to where you were supposed to sign by distinguishing it from the bulk of the contract. (Even today, I'm sure you've seen many forms with X's on the signature line to catch your attention.)
Some cynics say it was done to help distract you from reading the contract; instead, you just looked for the place to sign to be done with it. After all, how many of us actually read those ponderous forms they throw in front of us when we buy a car, for example?
But whatever the reason, the phrase apparently sprouted up in the 1920s, and, even though most lines are solid now, it remains a popular idiom used to signify an agreement to a deal.
More 'yard'work
Even though linguistic experts are skeptical, Albert Schmitt, of Columbia, wrote to say that he thinks the phrase "the whole nine yards" does indeed refer to ammunition belts in World War II.
"When I was a young boy, many heroes returning from the war would tell (me) about a German plane trying to sneak into the Allied formation," he wrote. "If the gunner didn't remember to give a short burst with his pair of .50-caliber machine guns and left his finger on the trigger too long, he gave them the whole nine yards. And, he could give 'em the whole nine yards in one or two seconds.
"In later years -- the crazy Cold War '50s -- when I was an assistant crew chief on a B-47E bomber, we lost that saying, because we didn't have belts of ammo, but rather ammo cans attached to our twin 20 mm cannons in the tail of the bombers."
One day, those cans almost canned him, he wrote. While the plane was being loaded, a co-pilot was asked to hold down the trigger on the gun. Schmitt was standing near the guns, but was told not to worry because the ammunition was safety-wired so it could not fall into the guns.
"Well, the safety wire broke and the cannons went boom! boom! boom! just past my head. From then on, this airman went on coffee break in the orderly room during the loading of bombs or cannons."
Send your questions to Roger Schlueter, Belleville News-Democrat, 120 S. Illinois St., P.O. Box 427, Belleville, IL 62222-0427 or rschlueter@bnd.com
