I am sorry you were accused of trying to ridicule the Church by your question. You are not Catholic and trying to understand a concept that is, frankly, actually very badly understood and applied by many Catholics, especially it seems to me in the United States, as the responses here show. I find several American priests writing on this subject even to provide commentary that seems to miss the key phrases in
Paenitemini, the apostolic constitution by the Blessed Paul VI which is dispositive.
The fact that the prescriptions of ecclesiastical law regarding penitence are specifically declared to be totally reorganised means that one cannot properly look back to what “was” in making a determination as to what “is” since the legislator is informing us that what “was” has been displaced.
The last sentence of the quote from
Paenitemini above is what is also crucial. It is the
substantial observance that binds gravely…not the individual instance. If the hypothetical person in your scenario has otherwise kept the observance of fast and abstinence during Lent, except for this one failure on Good Friday, he has substantially observed the Lenten discipline of fast and abstinence.
The one caveat would be that if he rushed into the steakhouse to eat the steak motivated solely by utter hatred of ecclesiastical authority, that could reach the conclusion you propose…of him committing mortal sin. It is an absurd premise and more the sort of anecdote moral theologians talk about in a light-hearted moment at an academic gathering than anything one will likely encounter in the “real world”.
You had earlier asked me to weigh in on your scenario…I resisted because, as written, the scenario is a bit problematic in its premises. But given how the responses have gone, I see I should weigh in. So…
In fact, one act of eating meat when there is an obligation to abstain is not a mortal sin. All he has done is failed to observe the abstinence in this instance. Assessment of moral guilt by him – assuming his conscience has been properly formed – and by the priest hearing his confession – trusting that he is acquainted with the governing norms – would have to look beyond the one instance and to a variety of other factors in assessing what sin, if any, was committed and invites absolution.
No, the Church would never teach such a thing.
From the perspective of moral theology, one must differentiate between an act which contravenes a disciplinary measure on the one hand and an act which is, for example, in violation of a divine commandment on the other hand. This is anything but equivalent to dying in the classic
in flagrante delicto moment.
The fundamental value also has to be understood in order to understand what is derived from it:
- The need to do penance is from divine positive law. In other words, God has said it and therefore we must comply with it.
- The ecclesiastical law is there to provide to the faithful, especially those who are not theologians, guidance in how to fulfill the obligation imposed by God to do penance.
