Meatless Fridays Return to England

The Catholic Bishops's Conference of England and Wales resolved to restore the practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays throughout the year.  The norm takes effect on September 16, 2011.

LONDON, ENGLAND (JohnPaulMoments.com) -- The Catholic Bishops's Conference of England and Wales resolved  this past week to restore the practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays throughout the year.  The decision to restore "meatless Fridays" in in England and Wales was reached during the bishops' May 9-12 meeting.  The norm is scheduled to take effect on September 16, 2011, the one-year anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the U.K.

The bishops remind Catholics in England and Wales of the obligation of Friday Penance. "Every Friday is set aside by the Church as a special day of penance, for it is the day of the death of our Lord," reads the announcement of the bishops' resolution about Friday penance.
 
They go on to specify that having a specific Friday penance can be for the faithful "a clear and distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity."  Additionally, they note that Catholics who wish to go beyond the act of common witness of abstaining from meat can voluntarily choose to make Friday an opportunity for prayer and self-sacrifice.

Bishops' conferences throughout the world have enjoyed the authority to regulate Friday penances for nearly a half century.  This privilege was granted to bishops' conferences in the 1966 Apostolic Constitution "On Fast and Abstinence," promulgated by Pope Paul VI, and later reaffirmed in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, approved under Pope John Paul II.

Among the canons in Church law regulating Friday penances, Canon 1250 states that "The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent."  Abstinence from meat is stated in Canon 1251 as the ordinary manner to observe Fridays throughout the year.  However, Canon 1253 makes it clear that "The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast."

In the United States, the topic of Friday penances was addressed in the "Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence," dated November 18, 1966.  In that document, the Bishops in the U.S. chose to "terminate the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday."  Nonetheless, they expressed the "hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice."

Will the U.S. Bishops decide to follow their colleagues in England and Wales with the restoration of the traditional practice of meatless Fridays throughout the year?  Only time will tell.

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Nonetheless, the words of the Bishops of England and Wales capture the big picture regarding the assorted possibilities for Friday penances, "In all these ways we unite our sacrifices to the sacrifice of Christ, who gave up his very life for our salvation."

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About the Author: Brother Randall Meissen, LC, is author of the book Living Miracles: The Spiritual Sons of John Paul the Great. He podcasts on John Paul 2 at JohnPaulMoments.com and can be contacted at rmeissen(at)johnpaulmoments.com.

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