View from the North 40: Lenten muskrat, anyone?

While the Catholic Church gets bashed frequently for its outdated church-sanctioned laws and pressured to modernize its ways, I’m here to lend some non-church support for one of those canons which started in the Detroit-area in the 1700s: muskrats on the menu for Lent.

Yes, in the 1700s the missionary priests in the Detroit area allowed Catholic parishioners to eat muskrat “on days of abstinence, including Fridays of Lent,” the Archdiocese of Detroit told The Associated Press in April.

And they actually do it.

Yes, muskrat Fridays is a thing.

Edward Peters, an expert on canon law...