On day two of the USCCB Fall Assembly this week, Archbishop Borys Gudziak spoke about the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’ in 2025 and proposed a striking idea for marking the occasion in the US: restoring the Friday fast from meat—“abstinence” in Catholic parlance—year-round:
A return to Friday abstinence would be good for the soul and for the planet, maybe for something else, uniting our devotion to the Lord and reverence for the Lord’s creation.
Writing as a layman, I’d like to make a case for the archbishop’s proposal. However unimportant or counterintuitive it might seem, restoring the Friday fast from meat would be good for the Church in the U.S., and I think 2025 is the right time to do it.
A preliminary but important point: this can happen. In fact, as Archbishop Gudziak noted in his talk, there is an existing model: England and Wales, which restored Friday abstinence in 2011 after the papal visit of Benedict XVI. And it’s largely been a success there. Brenden Thompson, the UK Program Director for Word on Fire, noted to me that the restoration “has taken quite well here.” Its observance may not be universal—certainly not a new problem—but since becoming the norm over a decade ago, Thompson says, Friday abstinence is “generally well known and in the main followed by most practicing Catholics I know.”
But should it change? I think so, and here are three good reasons why.
The first and most important reason is Jesus. The Lord championed feasting, of course—so much so that he was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard—but he also championed fasting. He fasted for forty days in the desert (Mt 4:1–2; Lk 4:1–2), a journey Catholics imitate every Lent. But he also taught his disciples the importance of fasting—and even fasting from attention while fasting (Mt 6:16). He praised John the Baptist, who subsisted on locusts and wild honey (Mt 11:11; see Lk 7:33; Mk 1:6), and he prophesied that his followers would fast when the bridegroom departed (Mt 9:15). The way of Jesus is a way of self-denial: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24). Jesus is pro-fasting, so his Church should be too.
A second reason is continuity with Church tradition. As Archbishop Gudziak noted, the Friday abstinence is not so much a “pre-Vatican II practice” as “two thousand years of practice.” From the first centuries of the Church, the people have God have followed their Head in pursuing ascesis (CCC 2015), with Friday (the day of the Lord’s Passion) as a privileged penitential day, and abstinence (given the cost, richness, and symbolism of meat) as a privileged penance. And we don’t face an either/or choice between fasting and service; on the contrary, as Scripture reminds us, they go together (Isa. 58:1–7; Tob 12:8). Fasting, Bishop Erik Varden writes in his phenomenal book Chastity, should be understood “not merely as disciplined eating but as a psychobiological, therapeutic practice of liberation from self-centeredness.”
Thirdly, the goals behind lifting the obligation remain unrealized. The stated hope of the US Bishops’ 1966 Pastoral Statement—an ambiguous departure still in effect today—was that “the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law.” The document also urged Catholics to make every Friday “a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ.” Whether all of this went ignored, unheard, or forgotten, it simply didn’t take: the collective experience of Fridays for American Catholics the past sixty years—with the exception of Lent—has been anything goes. As C.S. Lewis put it, sometimes an about-face is the most progressive move, and going back the quickest way on.
Even granting these three reasons, the question remains: Should it change now? Doesn’t the Church have more pressing issues to deal with in the coming year?
Yet 2025 seems to be an especially propitious time for this change. First, as Archbishop Gudziak noted, it’s the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’, and restoring Friday abstinence would have an added benefit for the environment. Second, it’s the concluding year of the Eucharistic Revival, and given the beautiful paragraph on the Eucharist in Laudato Si’ (236), a two-pronged drive toward, say, Thursday Adoration and Friday fasting would be a wonderful long-term legacy of both initiatives. Third, the Church in the U.S. continues to reel from the sexual abuse crisis, and this restoration would signal the Church’s collective commitment to penance for the abuses of some of its members. Fourth, the fascination with fasting in the popular culture is at an all-time high, and many younger Catholics are already practicing Friday abstinence voluntarily; rather than arbitrarily impose a top-down rule, it would prudently affirm and activate a groundswell of spiritual energy.
Last, but certainly not least, restoring the Friday fast would be a powerful sign, and source, of Catholic unity within our politically polarized culture. In his book The Strangest Way, Bishop Barron extols this “corporate sensibility” reinforced by the Friday fast, and laments its suppression: “The moment we say that a shared practice is ‘up to the individual,’ the social bond that it formerly produced is lost,” he writes. “The privatization of fasting requirements undermined a whole complex of ritual and symbolic connections by which corporate identity was preserved. . . . The capacity of the Catholic community to define itself and to speak a challenging word to the culture—even in a simple way—was seriously compromised.”
Like the shared feasts that recently drew together unlikely Catholic friends, this shared fast would be a counter-witness to our culture’s division. And, as hinted above, Catholics of both the conservative and liberal persuasions would have non-mutually exclusive reasons for enthusiasm.
So, three cheers for Archbishop Gudziak’s proposal. And if you agree, perhaps it’s time for us to pray—and fast—for its realization.
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The Archbishop lost me at “good for the planet”. I try to have meatless Fridays because of long tradition, not because of pseudo-science.
I totally agree, Linda.
In fact, the bishops referencing global warming as a reason to abstain from meat ensures that I will not be abstaining.
As MIT emeritus professor of atmospheric science, Richard Lindzen (check him out on Wiki), puts it:
“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”
Or, as I, a wildly unaccomplished layabout, put it:
“Carbon dioxide is not a poison. It’s not a pollutant. It’s a necessity for life on earth. Indeed, carbon is the molecule of life. In eons past, the earth did experience significantly higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we have now. The difference then? Plants thrived, food was plentiful and large mammals literally covered the earth, from pole to pole. In sum, more carbon dioxide equals more plants equals more animals equals a better, less stressful life for all. It’s hardly the ‘existential threat’ that the climate stooges claim.”
A bishop weighing in on warmism is like a weatherman opining about the Latin Mass:
Ridiculous.
Brineyman,
I hope you don’t mean you won’t consider fasting meat on certain days, like partial abstinence on Wednesdays (one meal with meat, or Fridays. That was a traditional practice in the Church. Just because a (possibly woke?) ABp proposed it that way should not affect a desire to sacrifice for Christ, His Church and the world. He may have added that to keep himself off the radar, to appease both sides. Personally, if that is the case, I believe it’s more heroic to be stalwart in your beliefs than kowtow. Unfortunately, a lot of kowtowing these past years, actually 70 yrs! What happened to Bp Strickland and many others, great leaders of the Church kicked to the curb and in some cases with worse replacements . We need prayer and fasting to effect change in the Church-Jesus is waiting for us to “armor” up…mostly crickets.
If someone suggested that I own a car because it will enable me to fly to the moon, I will dismiss their reasoning as disconnected from reality, and own a car for the many benefits of owning a car.
Just because someone provided a bad reason for fasting doesn’t mean that fasting is a bad thing. There are so many people in this world, with so much faulty reasoning, that simply reacting against them will put you in just as bad a position as believing them will. The way through is follow correct reasoning, and not to base your actions on nonsense, or to base your actions on reacting against nonsense.
I think his suggestion was to make it palatable to those who worship science more than truth. This gives them a reason when Faith does not. (And, who knows? It could be the avenue of their return.)
Agree. I outright reject “the idolatry of the planet.”
How utterly appalling:
– 1960s groove: stopping fasting and abstinence because Jesus isn’t worth it.
– 2025 groove: now we found something we really care about, the planet.
What utter impoverished infantalized junk. “Join us because we’ve got the re-purposed junk.”
Yup.
Indeed, Linda.
We can discard the A.G.W. rubbish for a starter.
Abstaining from meat in our circumstances is certainly not fasting, either. Nonetheless, it was an important witness to shared Catholicity, and it became so influential that everyone had “fish on Fridays”. It was almost unheard of to have a Friday community repast without providing a fish or other non-meat option. Now every parish barbecue is held on a Friday.
Also, it should not be overlooked that the U.S. bishops and their minions around the Western world did not have authority to give carte blanche to their flocks in regard to Friday “penance”. Canon 1251 requires “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.” Canon 1253 allows “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.” We should note from these two Canons that Friday abstinence/penance is required every Friday, and that bishops do not have authority to simply tell their flocks “Do what you like”.
Yes !! to the Friday abstinence Then how about receiving Holy Communion the tongue? Many/most Catholics give little evidence they really believe or understand Our Lord’s real presence in the Eucharist. When the Anglican Church was being prodded into shape by Cranmer (circa 1550) , he insisted on Communion in the hand with the belief that it would take only one generation to destroy belief in the real presence. He was right. Catholics are now about one generation since we took up the practice.
There are a great many people who already do not eat meat at all, vegetarians, and vegans. They already have been called to “other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.” During Lent our priests already have needed to address that. If they aren’t we can’t fault Canon Law for that failure.
Canon Law of the Latin Church Canon 1253 allows one “to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.”
Im not sure where you live, but where I live and serve many and most people make the outward sign of a bow before receiving Holy Communion. Their physical department and reverence is clear as they receive.
This is true whether the receive in the hand, on the tongue, standing or kneeling.
Since it is difficult to know a person’s inner spiritual deportment, IMHO, I think it best not to judge.
Certainly, there are those who show a lack of reverence and regular catechesis on the Blessed Sacrament is essential.
“Many” and “most” might be terms to avoid.
Where I live, which is a military area so we get a lot of people from accross the country, perhaps one or two people in a parish will bow.
I assume it is because of poor or nonexistent catechesis on the subject, not from any deliberate irreverence. But maybe that just means I’m judging all their pastors and former pastors. Or if I ascribe ignorance to the pastors, then I must be judging the pastors’ teachers. Is it possible for a person to observe an outward problem (Mr. Collins was careful to say “give little evidence”, rather than “don’t have any interior reverence”), without judging? Ought we to pretend no problems exist?
Thank you Fr, well written.
Weasel words, I’m afraid, Father. Just what stops any progress being made.
My wife and I keep to meatless Fridays. We certainly don’t need a bunch of bishops to mandate it. Every Catholic can decide for him or herself whether and how they should self-impose a sacrificial offering.
Exactly what is the total cost of a few hundred bishops flying off to Baltimore, staying at an upscale hotel and eating steak for 3-4 days that what we get out of it is a proposal to restore meatless Fridays? Can’t these bishops stay home and have a meeting on Zoom? Perhaps we should send in an Elon Musk to dioceses in the USA and to the USCCB to eliminate wasteful spending.
Deacon:
You certainly know very well that given the emnerging science that the fats in meat and some other items are necessary for testosterone production; and soy is filled with phytoestrogens; they were dining on tofu, beyond meat, almond and oak “milk”, and novelties.
Dear Pitchfork: Thanks for the correction. I forgot who the subject was.
Dear Pitchfork: Gee, I’ve had meatless Fridays ever since converting to Catholicism decades ago, and still have enough muscle mass, at age 75, to bench press 340 lbs. One meatless day a week is not going to turn me into a girl.
Can’t agree, Deacon, that every Catholic can decide for him or herself. That’s what we’ve got now, and almost all “Catholics” are deciding Friday is just another day.
Eastern Catholic Churches fast from all meat, fish, and dairy, wine, olive oil nearly all Wednesdays and Fridays.
Starting tomorrow most carry on that vegan fast (with the allowance of seafood without a backbone), no wine, and olive oil, nearly all days until Christmas. 😊 one of four such major fasts each year.
Note, it is our Eastern Catholic Archbishop Borys Gudziak, Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia who has made this suggestion for the Latin Church referenced by the author. 😊
Eastern Catholic Churches have a different notion of rules of fasting, where the rules indicate the ideal, not the basic expectation. Failing to carry out the complete fast is not considered a grave sin for them, as it is for us.
I do think it would be helpful for Latin bishops to require Friday abstinence throughout the year, and to provide some catechesis on what the ideal is, so that people have a direction to go in for doing more than the minimalistic requirements.
The Catholic Church in the USA has always had Friday fast and abstance and has never stopped the practice. It is clearly indicated in our calendars, bulletins and websites. Only the Latin Rite Church fails to do this, all other Catholic Churches make the practice very clear.
I’ll wager that if you asked 100 Catholics leaving Mass on Sunday if the Church still encourages some type of Friday fast/abstinence less than 10% would know this.
I agree Ron.
@ Linda: I was lost at the “planet” too. We are talking spiritual benefits.
At my former parish before moving, we started the partial abstinence on Wednesdays (one meal with meat), and full on Fridays, that was about almost 20 years ago. Same time I started veiling. Eventually, attended Latin Mass where I could as it was hardly around. It’s grown much more in certain areas in the states. We also go by the old calendar as well, which we follow Ember Days. The old calendar actually fosters living an “authentic” Catholic life in addition to the prominent holidays/Major Feast days. That has been lost in the “New” Mass/ Novus Ordo. As much as people want to argue the New Mass I’d fine, well, I guess so, to a point. The tradition that had gone on long before the change had fruits of the importance of our faith in Christ and to help keep our families together.
The N.O. was sparked by infiltrated clergy and at the same time, a culture war on morality and God, Himself.
Caveat, yes many teens, young adults flocking to “T”radition and the TLM, but the older crowd is too!
*The N.O. IS still valid for the Eucharist, so I’m not insinuating it’s defunct. I still attend if unable to go to TLM, which is my preference; but is a drive to get to.
If I remember correctly, when Friday abstinence was removed as an obligation, St. John Paul II said that it should still be observed. Not as an imposed obligation, but as a voluntary “sacrifice” from one’s heart. It added a much more meaningful spiritual value to it. I have never changed from observing “meatless” Fridays. And it has in ways, increased my own spirituality. Making it mandatory again, does create a certain unity again. But, strongly emphasizing the spiritual growth of voluntary self-denial is what should be promoted in no uncertain terms today by the church.
Perhaps a push for meatless Fridays would occasion a speed bump of thought from the otherwise mindset of “all you can eat.” It would also inject some concept of discipline in an obese American society sorley in need of it.
That said, meatless Friday is no real sacrifice in New Orleans where seafood is prepared so well, a frequent response to be heard when abstinence from meat is discussed.
I didn’t realise that ‘meatless’ Fridays were not observed. I don’t eat meat, but do eat cheese (my ‘substitute’, for the last 50yrs+). I don’t eat this on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays and observe a Fast on those days. Lent and Advent see no cheese at all (along with a reduction in meals generally). This article was an eye-opener!
I remember back in the old days, when Fridays were meatless, a Catholic couple who were neighbors, would make a great sacrifice and dine on Crab Imperial. Some sacrifice.
my father in law used to tell the story about the Protestant who used to cook out on the grill every Friday evening, in the suburbs. One of the senior Catholics in the neighborhood finally got him to convert so it would not be a problem for the Catholic neighbors smelling that meat after a hard week. So the Friday after Easter they figure the converted man and his diet will not be an issue anymore- lo and behold same time of the evening the same meat smell is wafting around the neighborhood, from the same back porch.
The senior Catholic goes and tells him, you were born Protestant, raised Protestant but now you’re Catholic. So the convert puts the meat on a plate, holds it up at eye level and says, “you were born a bovine, raised a bovine and butchered as a bovine, but now you’re a fish….”
My experience too, William.
I remember going into a restaurant on one Ash Wednesday and seeing a couple at the bar with ashes on their foreheads heartily enjoyed their shrimp cocktail. Not criticizing them but restricting oneself to Chilean sea bass, blackened salmon, cheese pizza, etc., doesn’t seem to me—with all due respect to Mr. Becklo—to be a meaningful matter.
Not against fasting, of course. Try to do it myself at times. But it should be voluntary in my opinion. Not a Church rule. We need more focus on love and truth and almsgiving for the hundreds of millions in grave and dire need.
Meatless Fridays is only a small sacrifice but it marked us as Catholics–a not inconsequential effect. I’m all for bringing back.
I think fasting & abstaining as an entire faith community has special impact & meaning. And increases a shared identity.
There are plenty of private sacrifices & devotions we always have available.
“A return to Friday abstinence would be good for the soul and for the planet”
Wolf in shepherd’s garb.
Slip me some of that new-time idolatrous earth worship under the guise of authentic Catholicism.
Hopefully this isn’t considered “off-topic”, but I also believe that we need to bring back ALL of the past Holy Days of Obligation, rather than moving most of them to Sundays, based on “convenience”; we need to once again observe “Ember Days”. IMHO, these traditions go hand-in-hand, & they foster the reverence & worship that God deserves. Consider that while many Catholics did reject the abortion agenda in this election, far too many still feel that abortion is “ok in some instances”. In addition, only about 30% of professed “Catholics” believe in the True Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. And of course, at the top of the list, is the war on the TLM, waged by our so-called pope & his minions. Today, we seem to worship & pray at OUR convenience, which is NOT the way God commanded. These Traditions of the church – Holy Days, Ember Days, Friday fasting, the TLM, etc. – need to see a resurgence, be promoted by all, especially our “shepherds”, who seem to be more preoccupied with “love is love”, the false “climate crisis”, & the “acceptance” of the alphabet-crowd agenda. We need better catechesis, starting from the top down. We need EVERY faithful Catholic to speak out & speak up. If we don’t, we’re no better than the devil himself. For evil to flourish, all it takes is for good men to do nothing. We (good men & women) MUST do something.
I don’t disagree with you on the Holy days but you’d need more priests available to offer numerous masses during the day and later in the evening (due to work/school week)
In regard to abortion, certainly the most vile sin surrounding us, my wife & I live remotely. So we “attend” Mass online most Sundays at parishes around the world. We’ve noticed a recent trend – the Prayers of the Faithful are excluding prayers for children in the womb. Is there an agenda here ?
They should bring it back. I know far too many Catholics who ask me, “didnt they do away with no meat on Fridays?” And then express amazement when I say its no longer obligatory,but you are supposed to substitute something else in its place if you choose not to abstain from meat on Fridays. Having an ongoing, same day of the week expectation from the church ( as it used to be) would be easy to remember ( as opposed to doing something else novel on our own), and give us all something in common, an important factor in this divisive era. Post Vatican II, the hierarchy tried all of this stuff–to “modernize”, or appeal to the Protestants.Whatever was in their minds. None of it worked. But the church as a body is worse off for it. Yet, crickets from the Bishops in terms of moving in reverse. I guess they can’t admit they were wrong. These changes did NOT make the church either better nor more appealing to the common man.
I didn’t know it had (officially?) stopped. Meatless Friday has always been the norm in our family, and I mean every Friday.
I think it would be good to reinstitute the meatless Friday in the Catholic Church in the West. The reasons:
1. To do penance and reparation for sin, in memory of Our Lord’s Passion to redeem us, and in gratitude to God for his goodness, love, and mercy
toward us.
2.To help us remember that we are stewards of the earth and sisters & brothers of one another. It can be a way of praying for those of our brothers and sisters on the planet who do not have enough to eat. It can also be an act of gratitude to God for his generosity to those of us fortunate enough to have what we need.It can help us avoid consumerism if we understand this and the fact that we cannot exploit creation for our own benefit but rather that we are to pass it on to the next so that they, too, can share it. Besides, this, like abstinence on Fridays can help us educate young people in the values that spring from our faith. For the same reason, our practice can help evangelize others and influence the our values of our culture.
3. It can help us rightly value and care for the body God has given us so that we may love and serve him in this earth, others for his sake, and live happily forever with him (and them) in heaven.
A robust and appropriate Catechism on this is necessary for such an effort
to succeed. Otherwise, it will all remain in the realm of theory and good wishes and have the same date as the repeal of the Friday abstinence in the Church in the West.