THE P RTAL
July 2011 Page 10
Meatless Fridays
Fr Aidan Nichols OP reflects
Catholics are quite keen on canon law . Canonical discipline makes for a well-regulated Church . It protects people against arbitrary dictates , whether the latter come from contemporary fashion or ecclesiastical tin-pot Hitlers .
That said , I would not go quite so far as an English Dominican canonist ( now deceased ) who was sufficiently carried away by his subject to call canon law ‘ the everlasting Gospel expressed in terms of time and space ’. But we can at least hope that the canons , whether of the Latin Church or of the Eastern Catholic Churches , reflect sound doctrine and occasionally , or even more than occasionally , can be inspirational for Christian living . Insofar as at their own level ( the day to day life of the household of faith ) they serve divine Revelation , they are , as the Eastern Orthodox like to say , the ‘ holy canons ’.
Days of Penance
So where do members of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham stand on this ? Because the Ordinariate is not only a peculiar ( in the good sense of the word !) entity but part and parcel of a wider Western Catholicism , they are bound not only by the special law of the Ordinariate but also by the general law of the Latin Church . So let them read Canon 1249 . It runs :
‘ All Christ ’ s faithful are obliged by divine law [ i . e . the Lord ’ s own precept , as found in Scripture ], each in his or her own way , to do penance . However , so that all may be joined together in a certain common practice of penance , days of penance are prescribed [ Canon 1250 will name them as all Fridays and the season of Lent ]. On these days the faithful are in a special manner to devote themselves to prayer , to engage in works of piety and charity , and to deny themselves , by fulfilling their obligations more faithfully and especially by observing the fast and abstinence which the following canons prescribe [ four more canons follow ]’.
Abstinence from meat
Canon 1251 goes on to explain that ‘ abstinence ’ here means abstinence from meat – and behind the Code ( but important for its interpretation ) the canonical tradition makes it plain how the prohibition includes ‘ viands ’ ( thus the Catholic Encyclopaedia ) that contain any meat component , so long as this is more than very minimal . Oxtail soup is included , then , as well as a medium rare fillet steak . In this way , and assuming we are not vegetarians ( they must find another penance ), we deprive ourselves of an enjoyable culinary experience , put ourselves to inconvenience , and even , if the canteen or our hostess are not offering a nonmeat option , end up with a radish and a potato .
Social Embarrassment ?
The social embarrassment of declining veal cutlets at a dinner party is not , in my opinion , a sufficient reason for ignoring these canons , and I don ’ t regard myself as a rigorist in these matters . In the past Roman Catholic moralists who regarded deliberately eating meat on a Friday as gravely sinful sometimes went over the top .
It would only be mortally sinful ( I submit ) were such mastication of meaty grub done from a motive of contempt for what the canon represented . And this is : the Saviour ’ s own command to do penance and the Church ’ s immemorial practice of linking such penance with the day of his redeeming suffering and all-atoning Death .
A shared practice of all the faithful
Notice that , according to the canon , the Friday penance ( I am not concerned in this short article with Lent ) is to be something ‘ common ’, i . e . a shared practice of all the faithful . It is not for the especially pious . It is for all and sundry . At any rate this is how , for the Code , things are to be in a given country or ( dare one say it ) national Church . For Canon 1253 allows bishops in a particular national territory ( in our case , that means England and Wales ) to ‘ determine more particular ways in which fasting and abstinence are to be observed ’. This brings us to the topic of the recent announcement of our Bishops ’ Conference at its Eastertide meeting .
Friday penance
One might have thought that it would have been better , after the Second Vatican Council , to let all Catholics , or at least all Latin Catholics , continue to have the same discipline in this matter throughout the world . But the framers of the Code evidently considered they must allow leeway for bishops to vary