Friday Penance
Make Fridays Penitential Again!
Editorial Note II: No Meat on Fridays? Some Bishops Say It’s a Good Idea| National Catholic Register . This excellent article on the possible return of this penitential practice does a good job of laying out the current status of the Friday Penance. A professor of canon law ends up siding with my position that Friday Penance is mandatory. While Mr. Akin is a very thoughtful writer, he is not a canon lawyer. I think the better interpretation therefore is that the penance is obligatory (and quite possibly binding under pain of mortal sin).
Editorial Note: It has come to my attention that Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers has a well researched post on the same issue. He comes to the opposite conclusion as I do, and concludes that Friday Penance (outside of Lent) is OPTIONAL in the U.S. Church, not obligatory. Given that this is a matter of positive legislation, lex dubii non obligat certainly applies (where the law is doubtful, there is no obligation). Interestingly, when I e-mailed the USCCB’s doctrinal department on this matter, the representative concurred with my interpretation. However, this was not necessarily a canon lawyer or bishop writing back to me!
Ultimately, I think that given the serious doubts for either proposition, this topic deserves a second look. There is simply insufficient clarity on this topic. I have left my article intact below for the time being. Here is Jimmy’s excellent analysis: Is Friday Penance Required? | Catholic Answers Magazine.
Fridays have always been a penitential day in the Catholic Church. We set aside Friday as a special day in this way to remember our Lord’s suffering and death, commemorating His perfect sacrifice for our sins. In the United States unfortunately, we seem to recognize the “specialness” of Fridays mostly or only during Lent. We all know to get fish for lunch on Fridays during Lent, but I think many Catholics do not know that every Friday through the whole year is a day of penance!
The Short Version
The Church historically bound the faithful to refrain from eating meat on every Friday throughout the whole year. This is called “abstinence.” In 1966 though, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) exercised their authority to allow the faithful to substitute some other act of penance on Fridays, in their Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence.
They gave "first place” to traditional abstinence but allowed each person to choose their penance for each Friday. What they did not do is make Friday penance optional, they simply gave the faithful freedom to choose what to do. Failing to do some act of penance on each Friday of the year, assuming that you knew of the requirement and fully consented to not fulfilling it, is a sin. Since penance is one of the five precepts of the Church, and is on the same list as missing Sunday Mass, we should err on the side of guessing that it is a mortal sin.
So, long story short, we as Catholics are required to commemorate every Friday of the year with some act of penance. Fridays in Lent require abstinence, with no substitution. On all other Fridays, what we do is our own choice, but failing to do something is a sin. Some possibilities on what to do include:
Giving up: meat, alcohol, soda, dessert, tobacco, fasting for the day, or some other similar thing. What we choose to give up should be meaningful to us.
Praying, in atonement for our sins, a Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet, or the Stations of the Cross, as a way of prayerfully giving up time to the Lord. If it is a busy day, the Divine Mercy Chaplet takes 5-10 minutes, perfect for fulfilling the Friday penance if we can’t do anything else or if we are traveling and can’t find a restaurant with fish.
Volunteering in some ministry on Fridays, as a way of doing works of mercy as reparation for sins.
The Long Version
This is the part where I back up my assertion as to why I’m claiming the above. Since the Friday penance has fallen out of common knowledge, skepticism of my claim is fair. My goal here is to prove that the Friday penance is obligatory and dispose of any objections to the contrary.
Canon Law
The Code of Canon Law states that “divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance” (Can. 1249). “Penitential days are prescribed…according to the norm of the following canons” (Can. 1249). The Code then states that “The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent” (Can. 1250).
Canon 1251 then states that “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.” This is followed by Canon 1253, which states that the Episcopal Conferences may “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.”
Our Episcopal Conference in the US is the USCCB, which means that the USCCB has the authority to substitute other forms of penance for the default abstinence from meat that all Catholics are bound to under Canon Law. If the USCCB had not done that, then all of us would, by default, have to give up meat every Friday.
The USCCB’s Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence (1966)
The USCCB did in fact provide for a substitute, via their Pastoral Statement in 1966. Citing “changing circumstances, including economic, dietary, and social elements,” the USCCB held that abstinence from meat was “not always” the “most effective means of practicing penance” anymore (Pastoral Statement, no. 18). Desiring to let people choose a more deeply meaningful penance (see no. 19-23), the USCCB elected to allow the laity to substitute a penance.
Tragically, they used the words “urge” and “freely choose” in their exhortation to penance. The somewhat lofty and poetic prose used, while beautiful, makes it unclear at the first reading whether or not there even is a remaining obligation at all, or if the Friday penance is purely optional.
The key to understanding the seeming contradiction is in no. 24:
“24. Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law.”
The “sole prescribed means” line is critical, as it implies that the duty is still prescribed, but that there are other means available to fulfill the obligation. The words “hope” and “free choice” do not apply to the Friday obligation, but rather to abstinence from “flesh meat,” which the USCCB wishes to still be the number one means of fulfilling the Friday penance.
Furthermore, in no. 25, the statement reads that “we emphasize that our people are henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence, except as noted above for Lent.” The freedom is only as to abstinence, not to doing penance generally, as the first part of the sentence only “pertains” to abstinence.
The last paragraph of the Pastoral Statement declares: “let it not be said that by this action, implementing the spirit of renewal coming out of the Council, we have abolished Friday” (no. 28). While fasting and abstinence are now a matter of personal choice on Fridays throughout the year (except Lent), the obligation remains - Friday as a day of penance is not abolished (no. 28).
Conclusion
Hopefully this is clear enough and well-cited enough to disprove any remaining skepticism. I also reached out to the USCCB’s department of doctrine and received an answer affirming my position on this. You can also listen to a pair of Dominican Friars discuss this issue here.
Taking Friday penance seriously is a beautiful task given to us by the Church, as it unites us weekly with the sufferings of Christ, helping us to keep in mind our sinful nature, and aiding us in working, through penance, to rise above concupiscence and, through God’s grace, attain the Sainthood for which we strive.
The U.S. Bishops made a big mistake and I still do not understand the reason for their logic behind this decision. A Catholic only needed to abstain from meat, how easy is that! It did not say that you had to eat fish. Growing up, my mother did not and still does not like fish. She forces herself to eat fish as an extra penance for Fridays. She always complained about the people lined up outside Chesapeake Bay Seafood House on Fridays during lent that they were not suffering because they liked fish.