The Great Catholic Fish Conspiracy.

I was talking to one of my diest-y, new age-y, "there must be a god, right," friends the other day and was asked about Good Friday, not eating meat, eating fish or fasting...(don't revoke my knowitall Team Atheist card, but...) I didn't know the answer. A-ha..I now have some info...

Like her or not (I do, Helllooo), Acharya has lots of info in the fish pope hat and the symbolism  of fish.

Little did I know there is a mythical straight up lie that Catholics hear growing up that a powerful medieval Pope in an effort to boost the fishing industry, made up the rule...fish Fridays, yo. Well kiddies, just like the gospels were written by God, gospels are historical, there was a fer real Adam and Eve, Christ was born on the 25th of December, poor Mary was a prostitute and now Good Fish Friday's...it's all a lie.

Here's some juicy juiciness. There are a couple of theories here, but I wanna go into this one. King Henery VIII, the nasty man that he was, divorced his wife, split from the Catholic Church, made himself leader of this new Anglican church thingy...and he remarried a total babe, the homewrecker Anne Boleyen. The article doesn't say why, but after all that, fish lost favor as a main staple on English dinner tables (before that, it was, like, everynite), and hella fishermen were like, "WTF."

This lovely is modeling the classic Pope fish hat.

When Hank's son took over, to the delight of fishermen, he reinstated Fish Fridays. In the 1960's Pope VI "loostened the fasting rules" and simultaneously fish prices went down (and that I probably where the that myth came from).

Lastly, when I was growing up Catholic, I was a veeerrrryy good Catholic, but as I got older I didn't adhere to shit concerning Good Friday. I guess I'm going to nonexistent hell.

* Article with, ya know, facts and stuff.

Can't really argue this one, right.