Originally published at National Catholic Register
Archbishop Borys Gudziak made his remarks at the conference’s annual fall meeting in Baltimore on Nov. 13.
A leading U.S. Catholic bishop on Wednesday called on his fellow bishops to help revive the tradition of abstinence from meat on Fridays as a way to commemorate the upcoming 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si’.
Archbishop Borys Gudziak, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, the committee charged with advancing Catholic social teaching, made his remarks at the conference’s annual fall meeting in Baltimore on Nov. 13.
In 1966, the USCCB (then called the National Conference of Catholic Bishops) removed the obligation of the faithful to abstain from meat on Fridays except during Lent. The tradition of fasting on Fridays dates back to the early Church but was codified in canon law in 1917.
“We could renew the tradition of Friday abstinence from meat,” said Archbishop Gudziak, the metropolitan archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. “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
