Are fortune cookies okay?

[Little_Flower]

Everytime I teach my 7th grade class about sins against the First Commandment, they always ask, “What about fortune cookies?” Is it okay to read them if they do not believe them? Is it okay to eat them as long as you don’t read them?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Fortune cookies are not meant to be taken seriously. They are more on the order of good-luck charms such as the rabbit’s foot, a four-leaf clover, or a lucky penny. While it would certainly qualify as superstition to put any real belief in the efficacy of any of the items mentioned above (cf. CCC 2111) and while it would certainly qualify as divination to actually seek one’s future through them (cf. CCC 2116), it is not wrong to enjoy them if one sees them as a sort of natural blessing. As for fortune cookies specifically, one can certainly eat them and, so long as one understands that the message is not intended to be a psychic reading of the future but a generic invocation of good fortune upon the recipient, even to read the message.