Originally published at National Catholic Register
EDITORIAL: This kind of personal and collective self-denial would serve as a badly needed counterweight to the contemporary culture of indulgence that prevails in consumerist Western societies
At the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ recent fall assembly in Baltimore, Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the metropolitan archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, offered a highly practical suggestion about how the U.S. Church can deliver a more unified Christian witness to our secularized society: Reinstate the obligation for all American Catholics to abstain from eating meat on Fridays.
Restoring the universality of this ancient Friday observance — which dates back to the earliest years of the Church and was practiced universally among Catholics until shortly after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council — would have several key benefits.
First and foremost, penance and self-denial are fundamental elements of Christian spiritual life. By our penances, we acknowledge our sins and our desire to heal the separation from God that occurs because of these sins. And through our penitential sacrifices, we unite ourselves to Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice on the cross, which was offered for our redemption on Good Friday. Abstaining from meat each Friday is a tangible
