Isn’t there somewhere in the Bible (possibly Daniel) that says the Antichrist schtick will include forbidding meat eating?
Nope, there’s
nothing in Daniel which says something to such effect. It does talk about the
tamid (the daily sacrifice) being halted and the abomination of desolation being put up, but nothing about meat eating at all.
I personally think this is why the Church made meatless Fridays voluntary.
According to the current Canon Law:
1250: All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church.
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 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.
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.
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.
Now, the United States Bishops’ Conference did employ Canon 1253 and obtained the permission of the Holy See for Catholics in the US to substitute abstinence or fasting with a penitential, or even a charitable, practice of their own choosing. I’m not American, but I know of due to it being repeated
ad infinitum.
Now, I don’t know if the Bishops’ Conferences in other countries has also determined along those lines.
Pope Paul VI’s
Paenitemini also expresses the same thing in similar lines:
II. 1. The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation throughout the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday, that is to say the first days of “
Grande Quaresima” (Great Lent), according to the diversity of the rites. Their substantial observance binds gravely.
2. Apart from the faculties referred to in VI and VIII regarding the manner of fulfilling the precept of penitence on such days, abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation, while abstinence and fast is to be observed on Ash Wednesday or, according to the various practices of the rites, on the first day of “
Grande Quaresima” (Great Lent) and on Good Friday.
III. 1. The law of abstinence forbids the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat.
2. The law of fasting allows only one full meal a day, but does not prohibit taking some food in the morning and evening, observing—as far as quantity and quality are concerned—approved local custom.
IV. To the law of abstinence those are bound who have completed their 14th year of age. To the law of fast those of the faithful are bound who have completed their 21st year and up until the beginning of their 60th year.
As regards those of a lesser age, pastors of souls and parents should see to it with particular care that they are educated to a true sense of penitence.
V. All privileges and indults, whether general or particular, are abrogated with these norms, but nothing is changed either regarding the vows of any physical or moral person or regarding the constitutions and rules of any approved religious congregation or institute.
VI. 1. In accordance with the conciliar decree Christus Dominus regarding the pastoral office of bishops, number 38.4, it is the task of episcopal conferences to:
A. Transfer for just cause the days of penitence, always taking into account the Lenten season;
B. Substitute abstinence and fast wholly or in part with other forms of penitence and especially works of charity and the exercises of piety.
2. By way of information, episcopal conferences should communicate to the Apostolic See what they have decided on the matter.
