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LilyM
Guest
Be careful - this depends very much on the country you’re in - not all are from your country.
Is a catholic restaurant owner sinning if he serves meat on Fridays during Lent?
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Tamsulosin
Guest
Also what is the percentage of catholics in USA.?In what states are the larger percentages?
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tvdxer
Guest
In a very Catholic area, where most of the inhabitants are baptized Catholics, it might be a sin, I would think.
However, in the U.S., the majority are not Catholic, and therefore not bound by the law. I don’t think it would be a sin to serve meat on Fridays in that situation, but I’m not sure. Perhaps you should ask your confessor. It seems like a reasonable question.
However, in the U.S., the majority are not Catholic, and therefore not bound by the law. I don’t think it would be a sin to serve meat on Fridays in that situation, but I’m not sure. Perhaps you should ask your confessor. It seems like a reasonable question.
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Shin
Guest
Well that sounds absolutely lovely.How would a franchise of Christian Restaurants,Inc sound?
How many (christians) are we ,percentage wise in the total population of USA?
Anyone has an idea? Would you patronize a restaurant where the food and camaraderie bring together people of the same faith, and where certain days are observed as far as food choices?
I would far prefer to eat at a restaurant with a crucifix over the door, and pictures of the lives of the saints on the walls, than any other restaurant, providing of course that the food was not a source of mortification unless I wanted it to be.lol.
I know many people who are embarrassed by saying grace in public, and these kinds of restaurants could help these nervous nellies get into the proper habits too.
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ProVobis
Guest
You’re right about that. Even within our country and amongst various dioceses, the rules may be different. I’m not even sure of the rules and certain dispensations within my diocese. You certainly don’t hear much of it from Sunday sermons.
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Tamsulosin
Guest
I just learned that the percentace of Christians in USA hovers around 75 to 76% of the total population.
There is a website MarketResearch.com/Christians that cites all kind of interesting data, and where one can find the list of hundred of publications geared towards Christians and where a Christian businessperson can advertise his or her business to the audience
that holds such faith.
Now I will try to find out what percentage are Catholics,like me
There is a website MarketResearch.com/Christians that cites all kind of interesting data, and where one can find the list of hundred of publications geared towards Christians and where a Christian businessperson can advertise his or her business to the audience
that holds such faith.
Now I will try to find out what percentage are Catholics,like me
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pipper
Guest
As someone who grew up in a Protestant family on a Texas cattle ranch. We never ate fish, and I detest it to this day It is a huge penance/mortification for me to have fish anytime. That is why it makes me happy to learn the church does not require us to eat fish ever, just to abstian from meat. Their are plenty of alternatives to fish, Mac & Cheese for example and vegan meals that combine proteins. It is also possible (which I do) to take fish oil capsules.
Do people know that in the EC and EO churches fish is banned most days during Lent and Advent, the rest of the days during those periods they are Vegan, it worked centuries for them.
Our own Catholic chiurch used to have much stricter rules during Lent and Advent.
Do people know that in the EC and EO churches fish is banned most days during Lent and Advent, the rest of the days during those periods they are Vegan, it worked centuries for them.
Our own Catholic chiurch used to have much stricter rules during Lent and Advent.
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Shin
Guest
I hear ya buddy! It’s great to have a form of mortification easy available like that though isn’t it? Just think, you could zip up to the seventh Heaven if you started eating that regularly for the rest of your life!
For me it’s vegetables. If it’s green, I don’t want it. Give me steak and potatoes.
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PapaSquash
Guest
As a Catholic and a restaurant owner, I serve meat on lenten Fridays. The menu is already written and bound. It has been distributed and published on-line; the staff is trained and product is stocked to serve that menu. Non-catholics who have takeout menus will call in from their offices. The cost and inconvenience of running a different menu for Lenten Fridays would be considerable. It would actually be better to run meatless all Fridays, so that at least staff and regular customers would be trained to expect it know how to run it. In our case we would definitely lose business as well.
A major key to sucess in this low-margin, high-failure-rate industry is consistency. Having a few days a year with a different set of rules is likely to go pretty badly. It would definitely raise costs, and as a diner in a blue collar neighborhood we make “serving the poor” and keeping prices down a definite part of the program. “Feeding God’s children” is part of the mission statement.
Having said that, 100% of my staff and a solid majority of my regular customers know that I am Catholic. Not hiding it; from the pictures of the abbeys and nuns to my daughter in her school uniform; advertising on Catholic radio and Church bulletins. Lots of large families (and other folks) crossing themselves before meals. The occasional guy in a black shirt with roman collar at table 32…
I always make the changeable Friday specials meatless. Specials are about 30% of the take every day and are displayed prominently. You can’t miss the fact that everything on the board except the 2 things that never change on Fridays are meatless.
my 2 cents
A major key to sucess in this low-margin, high-failure-rate industry is consistency. Having a few days a year with a different set of rules is likely to go pretty badly. It would definitely raise costs, and as a diner in a blue collar neighborhood we make “serving the poor” and keeping prices down a definite part of the program. “Feeding God’s children” is part of the mission statement.
Having said that, 100% of my staff and a solid majority of my regular customers know that I am Catholic. Not hiding it; from the pictures of the abbeys and nuns to my daughter in her school uniform; advertising on Catholic radio and Church bulletins. Lots of large families (and other folks) crossing themselves before meals. The occasional guy in a black shirt with roman collar at table 32…
I always make the changeable Friday specials meatless. Specials are about 30% of the take every day and are displayed prominently. You can’t miss the fact that everything on the board except the 2 things that never change on Fridays are meatless.
my 2 cents
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Tamsulosin
Guest
It was good to hear from a real restaurant owner, and it’s also good that you have Friday meatless specials.If you had been in my area ,I would have liked to take my family to eat at your restaurant.You may want to mention the name of the restaurant for those that live in your area.
There were several posts indicating that it was not a sin to serve meat at a restaurant on Fridays during Lent. How about at a home,I gather the same rule goes if I prepare meat for those in my family that are not catholic,including older children.Am I right?
There were several posts indicating that it was not a sin to serve meat at a restaurant on Fridays during Lent. How about at a home,I gather the same rule goes if I prepare meat for those in my family that are not catholic,including older children.Am I right?
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Phemie
Guest
Providing a meat dish for non-Catholic guests or relatives is perfectly OK. OTOH, even when we were too young to be required to abstain from meat, my mother categorically refused to prepare a separate meal for us. If we didn’t want what she put on the table we were perfectly free to make ourselves a peanut butter sandwich but she wasn’t about to make one for us. Since abstaining from meat on Fridays, even those Fridays in Lent, is not required in Canada, I never had to take that stand with my kids for that reason. Although with DD it would have been easily resolved as she emphatically declared one day, “I don’t like fish, Mom, I want tuna, please.”It was good to hear from a real restaurant owner, and it’s also good that you have Friday meatless specials.If you had been in my area ,I would have liked to take my family to eat at your restaurant.You may want to mention the name of the restaurant for those that live in your area.
There were several posts indicating that it was not a sin to serve meat at a restaurant on Fridays during Lent. How about at a home,I gather the same rule goes if I prepare meat for those in my family that are not catholic,including older children.Am I right?
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Tamsulosin
Guest
That is the cutest anecdote.
How can Canada have different rules for Catholics?Aren’t all Catholics guided by the Vatican,no matter your nationality or place or residence?
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Phemie
Guest
No, Canon Law mandates certain things but with things like Holy Days of Obligations and Friday penance it allows national bishops’ conferences to set Holy Days of Obligation and days of fast and abstinence for their countries.
That is the cutest anecdote.
How can Canada have different rules for Catholics?Aren’t all Catholics guided by the Vatican,no matter your nationality or place or residence?
The USCCB has decreed 6 Holy Days of Obligation (Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God; Ascension; Assumption; All Saints; Immaculate Conception & Christmas) and abstinence from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all Fridays in Lent.
The CCCB, OTOH, has decreed only 2 Holy Days of Obligation (Christmas and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God which happens to be on New Year’s Day) and abstinence from meat only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Both these decrees are approved by Rome.
Should such a Catholic restaurant even be open on Fridays…out of respect for Jesus’ passion and suffering?I think that if I owned a restaurant,out of respect for Jesus’ passion and suffering,I would not provide anybody with meat from a warm blooded animal on Fridays during Lent…It’s my restaurant,I set the menu.If the patrons do not like my food offerings for the day,they can go elsewhere.I would prepare savory fish and the like, not to lose clients.
But if I lose them ,I would dedicate my loss to Jesus.
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Tamsulosin
Guest
You do not eat on Lenten Fridays?
If your answer is yes,so does everybody else and the restaurant needs to remain open.
If your answer is yes,so does everybody else and the restaurant needs to remain open.
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Marfran
Guest
What food the restaurant serves on Fridays in Lent is irrelevant. People will choose a restaurant, or a dish at a restaurant, in accordance to their own personal tastes, diets, ideas about food, medical conditions etc.
If the restauranteur is Catholic, he/she will design a menu to reflect how he/she feels about traditional Lenten Fridays, or not. A Catholic restauranteur can choose to have a meatless menu on Friday, or he/she can choose to serve a variety of meals that encompass all of his/her patrons.
That being said…
Personally, meatless Fridays make me mad because the vast majority of Catholics have *no idea *of the origins of this practice, and why they are skipping meat on those days.
What is the point?? When you do not understand why??? When you only engage in this practice without relevant impact to yourself? And why are you even going out to eat in a restaurant on this day?
The origins of abstaining from meat are archaic and do not reflect current culture. (There are large numbers of the population who do not even eat meat, at all).
Abstaining from meat on Lenten Fridays has almost no impact on the Catholics that subscribe to this practice, because they just replace the steak or the hamburger, with an equal or often superior tasting meal.
Where I live there is a radio program that highlights and showcases the best *fish frys *(on Lenten Fridays) in town. Restauranteurs pull out all the best bells and whistles to get mentioned on this radio program. People flock to these, often upscale restaurants, in the name of a good Friday Fish Fry. There are often magnificient side dishes, sometimes entertainment, and liquor, etc.
Friday Fish Frys are all about good food and fun, and often drinking too.
OK–who knows why Catholics do not eat meat on Lenten Fridays? Who knows the origins of the practice and why it waS INSTITUTED IN THE FIRST PLACE?
What is the purpose of not eating meat on Lenten Fridays? Is it to suffer, to be deprived? Is it to put a spotlight on the fish industry? Is there another reason?
I think that any discussion of this TOPIC should also include the HISTORY of its inception and WHAT the rule is intended to accomplish.
I do not eat meat on Lenten Fridays, I do not eat meat on any Friday, I do not eat meat any day of the week.
I cook for a husband and family that does eat meat–but not very often–because I am the cook. My family usually eats 5 meatless dinners a week, and perhaps 2 dinners that include meat, per week. I have forgotten one Lenten Friday, that it was Friday, and served a meat item that unfortunate Friday.
My husband became upset–because he is a *good *Catholic–and refused to eat my dinner–even though the 4 or 5 previous nights, the dinner was meatless. He stormed out of the house and went to the golden arches to get a fish sandwich.
I think that he should have stayed home and prepared his own meatless meal–we have plenty of ingredients in the house–or I would have gladly shared whatever I was eating.
To me this illustrates the absurdity of Catholic meatless Fridays. (Don’t get me wrong–I think it’s great *not *to eat meat–I do it all of the time).
I look at the school lunch menu and see that it is the same menu as the month before–only the meatless offerings specifically fall now on the Fridays. No sweat to the cook–exchange this day for that.
As an outsider–a person who never eats meat–this all spells lunacy!
If you are doing something for a reason, then do it for that reason! If you don’t know the reason you are doing this–or it has no relevance to you–then stop and think about this.
People have forgotten why they don’t eat meat on Lenten Fridays–they practice meaningless meatlessness, and often treat themselves to an even better meal, complete with a pitcher of beer!
I don’t get that! The meaningless part. I don’t get the Friday Fish Fry parties and how they are in accordance to the whole concept of Lent.
And, as for myself, because I don’t eat meat, am I scott free or should I look to another way to participate in Lenten Fridays?
If the restauranteur is Catholic, he/she will design a menu to reflect how he/she feels about traditional Lenten Fridays, or not. A Catholic restauranteur can choose to have a meatless menu on Friday, or he/she can choose to serve a variety of meals that encompass all of his/her patrons.
That being said…
Personally, meatless Fridays make me mad because the vast majority of Catholics have *no idea *of the origins of this practice, and why they are skipping meat on those days.
What is the point?? When you do not understand why??? When you only engage in this practice without relevant impact to yourself? And why are you even going out to eat in a restaurant on this day?
The origins of abstaining from meat are archaic and do not reflect current culture. (There are large numbers of the population who do not even eat meat, at all).
Abstaining from meat on Lenten Fridays has almost no impact on the Catholics that subscribe to this practice, because they just replace the steak or the hamburger, with an equal or often superior tasting meal.
Where I live there is a radio program that highlights and showcases the best *fish frys *(on Lenten Fridays) in town. Restauranteurs pull out all the best bells and whistles to get mentioned on this radio program. People flock to these, often upscale restaurants, in the name of a good Friday Fish Fry. There are often magnificient side dishes, sometimes entertainment, and liquor, etc.
Friday Fish Frys are all about good food and fun, and often drinking too.
OK–who knows why Catholics do not eat meat on Lenten Fridays? Who knows the origins of the practice and why it waS INSTITUTED IN THE FIRST PLACE?
What is the purpose of not eating meat on Lenten Fridays? Is it to suffer, to be deprived? Is it to put a spotlight on the fish industry? Is there another reason?
I think that any discussion of this TOPIC should also include the HISTORY of its inception and WHAT the rule is intended to accomplish.
I do not eat meat on Lenten Fridays, I do not eat meat on any Friday, I do not eat meat any day of the week.
I cook for a husband and family that does eat meat–but not very often–because I am the cook. My family usually eats 5 meatless dinners a week, and perhaps 2 dinners that include meat, per week. I have forgotten one Lenten Friday, that it was Friday, and served a meat item that unfortunate Friday.
My husband became upset–because he is a *good *Catholic–and refused to eat my dinner–even though the 4 or 5 previous nights, the dinner was meatless. He stormed out of the house and went to the golden arches to get a fish sandwich.
I think that he should have stayed home and prepared his own meatless meal–we have plenty of ingredients in the house–or I would have gladly shared whatever I was eating.
To me this illustrates the absurdity of Catholic meatless Fridays. (Don’t get me wrong–I think it’s great *not *to eat meat–I do it all of the time).
I look at the school lunch menu and see that it is the same menu as the month before–only the meatless offerings specifically fall now on the Fridays. No sweat to the cook–exchange this day for that.
As an outsider–a person who never eats meat–this all spells lunacy!
If you are doing something for a reason, then do it for that reason! If you don’t know the reason you are doing this–or it has no relevance to you–then stop and think about this.
People have forgotten why they don’t eat meat on Lenten Fridays–they practice meaningless meatlessness, and often treat themselves to an even better meal, complete with a pitcher of beer!
I don’t get that! The meaningless part. I don’t get the Friday Fish Fry parties and how they are in accordance to the whole concept of Lent.
And, as for myself, because I don’t eat meat, am I scott free or should I look to another way to participate in Lenten Fridays?
M
Marfran
Guest
Ditto
Yes, I do eat on Lenten Fridays and every other day as well.You do not eat on Lenten Fridays?
If your answer is yes,so does everybody else and the restaurant needs to remain open.
But if the restaurant owner should not serve meat to remind us of the suffering of the Lord, would it not be an even better witness if the restaurant were not open at all?
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Tamsulosin
Guest
That restaurant owner needs to make a living ,he cannot afford to close.(He is paying for his children braces)There are plenty other foods to serve.Why would he close the store?:banghead:
But there is a requirement for Catholics regarding not eating red meat on Lenten Fridays. The original post was a question trying to obtain info to see if it was ok to serve other catholics or any other people such red meat
No need to get so upset:tsktsk:
But there is a requirement for Catholics regarding not eating red meat on Lenten Fridays. The original post was a question trying to obtain info to see if it was ok to serve other catholics or any other people such red meat
No need to get so upset
:tsktsk:Yes, he needs to pay for braces. As a father who just last week witnessed a duaghter’s braces coming off (three down, one more to go) I can definitely sympathize.That restaurant owner needs to make a living ,he cannot afford to close.(He is paying for his children braces)There are plenty other foods to serve.Why would he close the store?:banghead:
But there is a requirement for Catholics regarding not eating red meat on Lenten Fridays. The original post was a question trying to obtain info to see if it was ok to serve other catholics or any other people such red meat
No need to get so upset
In your original post, you stated that if the patrons chose to go elsewhere, you would offer that up to Jesus. What about the money those patrons would have spent? Would they not have paid for some of the braces?
The point I am trying to make is that a Catholic restaurant owner is not committing a sin by serving meat on Fridays. Individual Catholics (those with a legitimate exemption excluded) who eat meat on Fridays commit a sin. While your idea that serving only meat on Friday out of witness to the Lord’s suffering has some merit, I believe that is going too far. Unless the restaurant owner is certain that 100% of his patrons need to abstain from meat on Friday, there is no reason whatsoever to compel him to not serve meat. I guess I just draw the line at a different point than you do.
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