Question about eating meat on every Friday

[workinprogress]

All this is quoted (with title numbers turned to numbers and a document given quotation marks instead of initialized) from Fatima Crusader Autumn 2002, issue 71. pg 47.
It can be found online. I will try to find the link next time, but can anybody tell me if this was changed later from an Apostolic Constitution by Pope Paul 6th or if this info holds? Thanks!

Contrary to what you have been led to believe, contrary to what you have been told is in Vatican Council 2, contrary to whatever impression or statement that was given you by a Cardinal, bishop, priest or whole council of them–the fact is you are still, today, obliged under pain of mortal sin, to abstain from eating meat on Friday if you have reached the age of 14. The only concession is for the sick who are excused from observance.
I am sure that some of you must be protesting, “this is not true, it was changed at the Council”. Well, I will tell you what changed. In February of the year 1966, Pope Paul 6 promulgated an Apostolic Constitution (17 Feb 1966) entitled “Paenitemini” in which he said that the law of the Church still says to abstain from meat on every Friday throughout the year.
However, he gave permission to go against the letter of the law if the conference of bishops of a particular country petitioned the Holy See, the Pope, for permission for their people to do another penance on Friday in place of not eating meat

 

[deogratias]

So what’s the question?

 

[deaconswife]

I would be curious to see the document in its entirity. I am highly suspicious of any publication by Fr. Gruner who is under censure at present. The Fatima Crusader is the publication of this man’s organization. They have stubbornly refused to admit that the conscration done by Pope John Paul II was valid despite a statement from Sr. Lucia. They have also contended that the third secret revealed recently is a hoax and that there is actually a second document containing the real third secret. Because of these things, it concerns me that they might be using actual documents and cutting and pasting to suit their own agenda, much in the same way as fundamentalists quote Scripture out of context to prove their point.

 

[buffalo]

Check Canon Law. You will find it there. Indeed abstinence from meat on Friday is still in effect. If for some reason you cannot fast a separate penance or sacrifice is to be done in its place. Seems another spirit of VII issue is at work here.

**Canon 1250 ** All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church.

Canon 1251 Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless (nisi) they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Canon 1252 All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence; all adults are bound by the law of fast up to the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors and parents are to see to it that minors who are not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are educated in an authentic sense of penance.

Canon 1253 It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

From what I understand, the Bishops of the United States back in the late 60s asked that the “abstinence from meat” on NON LENTEN Fridays be to . It was, and is, perfectly OK to KEEP that traditional meat abstinence; it apparently also is perfectly OK to have a DIFFERENT Friday “penitential practice”, such as a Friday rosary or other ADDITIONAL DEVOTION (i.e., if you already say the rosary daily, you have to add an additional rosary, chaplet, etc.) or ANOTHER ABSTENTION (i.e., if you’re already a vegetarian, you don’t eat meat anyway, so on Fridays you give up coffee, cola, sweets, etc.).

On LENTEN Fridays, of course, the abstention from meat is a mandatory discipline. (And to all you vegetarians, I’m sure you “give up” something else for those Fridays).

 

[Timidity]

Hasn’t this sunject been pretty much run into the ground in serveral other threads? At least one of which has been closed by the moderators…

 

[workinprogress]

The question, Deo Gratias, is why don’t we get told these things if it needs to be known? I was born after Vatican 2. I am also a lover of info… Granted, the Vatican canb’t tell us everything they know about everything, but they can tell us what the Church teaches about any necessary fastings or penitence.

To Deacon’s wife. There are many clergy, theologians and Catholic school faculty teaching all kinds of heresy out of ignorance (due to some other body that may be more culpable) or because the tough teaching doesn’t feel right to them. They don’t get censured but Fr. Gruner does. Let’s have some consistency, ok. I don’t know what was generally believed so everyone is either suspect or ok in my understanding until I get solid info that one bunch is telling the truth and one is not. Why are actions taken against Fr. Gruner but not “Call to Action”?. Hmmm. Sounds suspicious. Maybe ulterior motives from the hierarchy are driving who gets censured and who does not or maybe hierarchy is afraid of walk-outs by liberal workers “for” the Church?
BTW I am not a “down with the hierarchy” type but I think we need real stand-up leaders running parishes and schools and it needs enforcing. As for the latter, which ties into that last comment, while the Vatican is dialoguing with other religions, many Catholics are losing the Faith because noone is declaring “anathema” on herestics. Popes before Pope John 23rd took no crud from anyone. If clergy and educators taught heresy, they got the boot. The Faith of masses would be saved while snakes crawled under their rocks. Now, we have pedophiles and homosexuals doing their thing in seminaries, parishes, and books and everyone is scandalized. It’s time someone at top of the Church militant puts their foot down while we still are in a time of mercy before the highest head of the Church comes down from heaven and takes care of business judgment style. They can put their foot down on SSPXers and Feeneyists (but especially sedevacantists and slanderers on the right, too), but let’s be consistent
The one thing I like about the Fatima Crusader, ascompared to other extreme traditional groups, is that they are more likely to pardon the Pope as possibly a kind of slave to some near him in the Vatican.