Meat & Holy Days

[Mintaka]

We all have parents who were empowered by God to have their own household rules, so long as the rules are just and moral. All of us have to follow the household rules while we are kids, or while we live under that roof. Once we are adults with our own residences, we are also empowered to create our own household rules.

Disobeying parental rules is a sin, even if doing the same thing does not break the household rules next door.

Bishops are the heads of household for their entire see. They can make whatever household rules don’t conflict with the rules of the Church. Breaking their rules is a sin, if you are a member of that household, even if the have different rules in the dioceses next door.

 

[mVitus]

Vico, I guess it’s because even though I understand they have the authority, I still struggle with the “but why are they using that authority” part. Since the part of me wondering about it all is thinking, “Why are they making something that a person could fall into mortal sin over when other councils aren’t?” THAT’s where my bewilderment comes from. So even though I understand the authority to do so is present and I guess I can understand that different areas have different challenges, but a part of me is thinking, “But why not make it venial then?”

Are there any articles or something to read where the US Bishops defend/explain their reasoning behind keeping the meat obligation ect.? I’m guessing not considering it’s probably not a high issue and most of those that don’t understand it probably just ignore it anyways, but if anyone knows something, maybe that’d help?

 

[Vico]

Vico, I guess it’s because even though I understand they have the authority, I still struggle with the “but why are they using that authority” part. Since the part of me wondering about it all is thinking, “Why are they making something that a person could fall into mortal sin over when other councils aren’t?” THAT’s where my bewilderment comes from. So even though I understand the authority to do so is present and I guess I can understand that different areas have different challenges, but a part of me is thinking, “But why not make it venial then?”

Are there any articles or something to read where the US Bishops defend/explain their reasoning behind keeping the meat obligation ect.? I’m guessing not considering it’s probably not a high issue and most of those that don’t understand it probably just ignore it anyways, but if anyone knows something, maybe that’d help?

You can read about it in paenitemini of Pope Paul VI, from 1966:

To recall and urge all the faithful to the observance of the divine precept of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to reorganize penitential discipline with practices more suited to our times. It is up to the bishops—gathered in their episcopal conferences—to establish the norms which, in their pastoral solicitude and prudence, and with the direct knowledge they have of local conditions, they consider the most opportune and efficacious. The following, however is established:

In the first place, Holy Mother Church, although it has always observed in a special way abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless wants to indicate in the traditional triad of “prayer—fasting—charity” the fundamental means of complying with the divine precepts of penitence. These means were the same throughout the centuries, but in our time there are special reasons whereby, according to the demands of various localities, it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others.(60) Therefore, where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given in order that the sons of the Church may not be involved in the spirit of the “world,”(61) and at the same time the witness of charity will have to be given to the brethren who suffer poverty and hunger beyond any barrier of nation or continent.(62) On the other hand, in countries where the standard of living is lower, it will be more pleasing to God the Father and more useful to the members of the Body of Christ if Christians—while they seek in every way to promote better social justice—offer their suffering in prayer to the Lord in close union with the Cross of Christ.

Therefore, the Church, while preserving—where it can be more readily observed—the custom (observed for many centuries with canonical norms) of practicing penitence also through abstinence from meat and fasting, intends to ratify with its prescriptions other forms of penitence as well, provided that it seems opportune to episcopal conferences to replace the observance of fast and abstinence with exercises of prayer and works of charity.

In order that all the faithful, however, may be united in a common celebration of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to establish certain penitential days and seasons(63) chosen among those which in the course of the liturgical year are closer to the paschal mystery of Christ(64) or might be required by the special needs of the ecclesial community.(65)

w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini.html

 

[Gorgias]

V I guess it’s because even though I understand they have the authority, I still struggle with the “but why are they using that authority” part.

Because they feel that it’s something that will benefit us.

Since the part of me wondering about it all is thinking, “Why are they making something that a person could fall into mortal sin over when other councils aren’t?”

Two thoughts, here:

First, this is something that’s observed by the Universal Church. Canon law just makes it something that the local conferences of bishops are allowed to “determine more precisely.”

Second, it used to be something that was “binding under pain of sin”. But, with the change in the '60s, that “pain of sin” part was dropped. It’s still an obligation, but it would seem that moral sin doesn’t attach (unless, I guess, you ignored it on purpose as a way of denying Church authority).

Are there any articles or something to read where the US Bishops defend/explain their reasoning behind keeping the meat obligation ect.?

Yes: usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm

 

[Vico]

Because they feel that it’s something that will benefit us.

Two thoughts, here:

First, this is something that’s observed by the Universal Church. Canon law just makes it something that the local conferences of bishops are allowed to “determine more precisely.”

Second, it used to be something that was “binding under pain of sin”. But, with the change in the '60s, that “pain of sin” part was dropped. It’s still an obligation, but it would seem that moral sin doesn’t attach (unless, I guess, you ignored it on purpose as a way of denying Church authority).

Yes: usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm

From USCCB: “This said, we emphasize that our people are henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence,except as noted above for Lent.”

 

[Gorgias]

From USCCB: “This said, we emphasize that our people are henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence,except as noted above for Lent.”

Right. So, that means that the obligation remains in Lent, but not the “binding under pain of sin.” From the paragraph before your quote:

1. Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law.

And, in the sentence after your quote:

We stress this so that "no"scrupulosity will enter into examinations of conscience,confessions, or personal decisions on this point.

In other words:* No more obligatory abstinence on Fridays, except for Fridays in Lent.

• No more “under pain of sin”.
• Please don’t be scrupulous about the whole “under pain of sin” thing.

 

[Vico]

Right. So, that means that the obligation remains in Lent, but not the “binding under pain of sin.” From the paragraph before your quote:

And, in the sentence after your quote:

In other words:* No more obligatory abstinence on Fridays, except for Fridays in Lent.

• No more “under pain of sin”.
• Please don’t be scrupulous about the whole “under pain of sin” thing.

Per USCCB in as far as they have power per the canon law. Lent is stil under the pain of sin.

1. In keeping with the letter and spirit of Pope Paul’s Constitution Poenitemini, we preserved for our dioceses the tradition of abstinence from meat on each of the Fridays of Lent, confident that no Catholic Christian will lightly hold himself excused from this penitential practice.