No Meat On Fridays

[Guest lilbro]

why can't we eat meat on friday's during lent? who started it?

[cappie]

I assume you live in the United States. In Australia there are only two days you cannoy eat meat Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. It is left up to the Bishops Conference.

In Catholic teaching abstinence is a penitential practice of doing without meat. Meat is chosen traditionally because meat was widely used a a staple and therefore it was considered penitential to give it up in memory of the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday.

In Australia all Catholics are required to do some penitential practice on all Fridays of the year but especially in Lent. These can include not eating meat but also take in other positive practices such as going to Mass, reading the Bible, spending extra time in prayer, visiting the elderly in their homes

From the Code of Canon Law

Can. 1249 All Christ's faithful are obliged by divine law, 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. 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.

Can. 1250 The days and times of penance for the universal Church are each Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Can. 1252 The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Pastors of souls and parents are to ensure that even those who by reason of their age are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence, are taught the true meaning of penance.

Can. 1253 The Episcopal Conference can determine more particular ways in which fasting and abstinence are to be observed. In place of abstinence or fasting it can substitute, in whole or in part, other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

As for other countries someone else will no doubt reply