Off Beat Friday from the American Papist.

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

Sure, the idea was to offer up the pleasures of eating meat as a penance one day out of the week, but frankly, those faithful Catholics still ate mammals six days out of the week.

So really, there could be no doubt in those tasty farmyard minds about who was the boss. I mean, have you ever witnessed a cow or pig try to attack someone? Of course not! Except maybe that one time (on a Friday - surprise, surprise).

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.

Luckily, so far their attempts have been unsuccessful.

This week a 24-foot basking shark washed ashore on Long Island beach. Now of course naysayers will point out that the basking shark is harmless, has no teeth, and feeds primarily on plankton. Well, it also has a mouth big enough to swallow your little sister in one gulp. I'm just saying, I wouldn't let a basking shark into my little sister's swimming pool.

Unfortunate navigation error, or calculated reconnaissance mission?

Earlier this week, on the opposite coast, dozens of Jumbo Humbolt Squid washed up minutes after a 4.0 earthquake hit off the coast of La Jolla, California.

... sure people, earthquakes, like God never uses those to get a message across!

Before Vatican II, this squid would never have been allowed to grow bigger than sushi-roll size.

The local reporter in the case above was only too eager to leave the story high and dry:

"For now there are more questions than answers; did the earthquake cause the squid to wash up or was it simply a coincidence?"

Sure, give in to the dictatorship of relativism. Don't quit your Friday Lamb Kabob habit. Keep smugly visiting Sea World to watch dozens of eligible dinners wiggle around behind the Plexiglas unharmed and carefree.

Not surprisingly, the most disturbing case of underwater-based aggression to date has occurred in Europe, which is especially guilty of ignoring the admonition of the Church to eat fish on Fridays:

"Police divers have ended the reign of terror of a huge fish that was attacking swimmers in a Swiss lake.

The zander, which was 70 centimetres (two feet three inches) long and weighed eight kilos (17.5 pounds), was harpooned on Sunday after it bit six swimmers over the weekend, fish warden Fabio Croci told local media."

In other words, after biting six swimmers (presumably one each day), the fish rested from its nibbling on the seventh day, and was finally killed on that Sunday. Apparently even Zander fish have standards. So just what does that say about us? If the Zander fish had been eaten on Friday ... some Swiss kid would have kept on to his pinky finger on Saturday.

My recommendation: bring an oven along with you on the boat. It just saves time.

In fairness, I was relieved to find out, upon reading the story of the Zander fish's reign-of-terror more closely, that its delectable remains were "served up to tourists at the lake." As the saying goes, an eaten fish is a happy fish.

After hearing about these examples of modern icthyan aggression, I think it should be very clear to all informed readers why we, as a community and a Church, need to make the serious effort of continuing the venerable tradition of consuming our scaly arch-enemies with reckless abandon every Friday.

After all, it's supposed to sound like "Fry-Day" for a reason.

If this fish were still alive, it would be asking you to eat it.