The Discontinued Fish Sandwich KFC Tried To Get The Pope To Bless

The tricky thing about tying your fast food company's identity so closely to a specific kind of food is that it's sometimes hard to diversify. McDonald's, for instance, is where you go to get burgers. When McDonald's tried to sell pizza back in the 1980s, it mostly just weirded people out. Likewise, KFC selling non-chicken items will inevitably be a bit of a steep climb — the "C" stands for "chicken," after all. Still, that didn't stop it from trying to sell a fish sandwich called the Fish Snacker back in the 2000s. Not only that, it tried to get the actual Pope to bless it.

The Fish Snacker was unveiled on Ash Wednesday in 2007 in advance of Lent (that is, the 40 days before Easter). Traditionally, Catholics don't eat meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all other Fridays during Lent to honor the sacrifice of Christ's flesh; fish, however, is acceptable. For this reason, plenty of fast food chains offer fish sandwiches during Lent and KFC wanted to get in on the action — and maybe even one-up smug, old McDonald's and its Filet-o-Fish by getting an endorsement from Pope Benedict XVI. Unfortunately for KFC, the Pope usually doesn't make endorsements. The eventual discontinuation of Fish Snackers probably had little to do with its lack of a thumbs-up from God's emissary, but we can't imagine it helped.

As we said, the Pope doesn't typically endorse products the way a famous athlete or actor might. He is, after all, the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church; he's concerned with the welfare of your immortal soul, not what you pick up from the drive-thru. That doesn't mean companies haven't taken advantage of the Pope's ultra-high profile to boost their image. Brands like Prada and Apple donated products to Benedict XVI in hopes that he would be photographed using them, while American Airlines received attention for providing Pope Francis' transportation during his first trip to the United States.

With that said, past popes have in fact endorsed products, including food and drink. Vin Mariani, the once-popular cocaine wine (yes, really) enjoyed an endorsement from Pope Leo XIII, who gave its inventor an official Vatican gold medal to celebrate his innovative work. Then there was the famous advertisement for Bovril, a meat extract/soup/spread thing popular in Britain whose advertisements featured Leo XIII with Bovril next to the phrase "The Two Infallible Powers." Unlike Vin Mariani, the Vatican likely had not agreed to this use of the Pope's image. In any case, KFC wasn't quite so lucky or so bold.