Profile America — On this date 50 years ago, a 1,100-year-old religious injunction was lifted for America’s 46-million Roman Catholics. In recognition of Friday as a day of penance, Pope Nicholas I had decreed in the 9th Century that Catholics would be required to abstain from eating meat, although fish on Fridays was allowed. The U.S. church hierarchy dissolved that guidance in 1966. At the time, America’s population of 197-million consumed an annual per capita average of 10.6 pounds of fish. The change in church practice has been no reprieve for marine and freshwater fish. Today’s population of 325-million, including 81.6-million Catholics, now consumes a per capita average of 14.5 pounds of fish annually.
You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online.
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