Rev. Fr. Peter R. Scott

Q. Why do Catholics not eat meat on Fridays?

A. The practice of Friday abstinence dates from the very beginning of the Church. The principle of the penitential practice of abstinence, in order to achieve self-mastery, was already outlined by St. Paul himself: "Everyone striving for the mastery must abstain from all things" (I Cor. 9:25) and "Let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of Christ in labours, watchings, and fastings" (II Cor. 6:5).

Explicit mention is made of the practice of abstaining on Fridays in a documents from the end of the first century (The Didache of the Apostles), as well as by St. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian in the third century. It was the universal custom from the very beginning, and Friday was chosen in memory of the Passion of Our Lord, as a day on which we should make a special effort to practice penance. It is in recognition of the fact that Christ suffered and died, and gave up his human flesh and life for our sins on a Friday that Catholics do not eat flesh meat on Fridays. Pope Nicholas I made this a law of the Church in the ninth century. In the Latin Church, from the early Middle Ages this one day of abstinence was not considered enough, and Saturday abstinence was added, in honor of the burial of Christ and the mourning of the Blessed Mother and the holy women on Holy Saturday. This was made a law of the Church by St. Gregory VII in the 11th century, but has since fallen out of custom, except by those who desire to profess their devotion to Our Lady in a special way. The Eastern Rite Church also had strict rules for abstinence, given that it was binding for them on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The rules for what can and what cannot be permitted on days of abstinence have also varied with time. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, indicates that eggs, milk, butter, cheese and lard are forbidden on days of abstinence because they come from animals and have some identity of origin with flesh meat. Present-day rules limit the abstinence to flesh meat only.

The abstinence from meat is an ecclesiastical law, but one which has long obliged under pain of mortal sin. Pope Innocent III made this very clear at the beginning of the 13th century, and in the 17th century Pope Alexander VII anathematized those who would minimize the character of this obligation and declared that transgressions against it were only venial sins.

It is certainly true that, as an ecclesiastical law, it can be changed by the Church's sovereign authority. However, the way this important precept has been trivialized by the post-conciliar Church is a great disgrace and shame for Catholics. It is clearly not taught to bind under pain of mortal sin, and the mention of the possibility of substituting any other kind of sacrifice by the 1983 Code of Canon Law has effectively destroyed this very ancient practice. The fundamental reason why the modernists detest the Friday abstinence is that they refuse the need for at least some small works of penance to satisfy for the temporal punishment due to our sins, and they do everything they can to empty out the mystery of the Passion, that is of the Cross, and to replace it by a Risen Christ without suffering and sacrifice. However, it was by suffering and by offering up his own flesh and blood that Our Divine Savior deigned to redeem us, and consequently it is our duty to associate ourselves with Him by the Friday abstinence.

Traditional Catholics know full well that they have a grave obligation of maintaining this ancient penitential Tradition. They can and should confess it as a mortal sin if they break the Friday abstinence without any excusing reason. It is not a mortal sin in virtue of the Church's positive, ecclesiastical law, or at least not clearly so. However, it is a sin of disrespect and contempt for Our Lord's passion and death, for the Church's traditions, and for the necessity of doing penance, and a sign of grave indifference to the work of our Redemption. Consequently, the priest will not hesitate to give absolution to one who confesses this sin, being truly contrite for it.

Q. Why are there different translations of Genesis 3:15, some indicating that the woman's seed will crush the serpent's head, and others that it is His Mother herself will do it?

A. After the story of the Fall and of the punishment to be inflicted on sinful mankind, Almighty God curses the serpent and promises the Redeemer, seed of the woman, that is of the Blessed Virgin Mary, saying that He will place enmities between the serpent and the woman, and between his seed and the woman's seed: "She will crush your head and you will lie in wait for her heel."

Such is the translation of the Vulgate (ipsa), namely that she will crush the serpent's head, as confirmed by the translator, St. Jerome, in his writings. Scripture scholars point out that the Greek text of the Septuaginta, and all the original Hebrew manuscripts except two, state that it is he, that is the seed of the woman, who will crush the serpent's head. How can this be, you might think, since the Council of Trent guaranteed that the translation of the Vulgate is without error? How could St. Jerome have made such an obvious error?

Of course, there is no error at all, and St. Jerome deliberately translated it indicating that the Blessed Mother would crush the serpent's head. Here his translation is guided by the Catholic Faith, and makes a little more explicit the role of the Blessed Virgin in destroying the serpent, which role is already manifestly contained in this very text. Clearly, if there is enmity between the serpent and the Blessed Virgin, and not just between the seed of one and the seed of the other, this means that the Blessed Virgin is perfectly united to Our Lord's work of destroying the devil's power. Together with her seed, she crushes the head of the devil. St. Jerome's translation is consequently equally correct, and has the advantage of bringing out a little more clearly the role of Our Lady. It was made in the light of the teaching of the Fathers, without whose interpretation we cannot understand Holy Scripture. Pope Pius IX used the patristic application of this text to Our Lady to establish the Immaculate Conception (Ineffabilis Deus).

Q. Why is it that the priests of the Society do not send faithful who have grounds of annulment to the local diocesan tribunal?

A. Not infrequently the priests of the Society are contacted by faithful who have been previously married, but whose marriage failed. They will sometimes present convincing evidence of the nullity of their previous marriage, such as the refusal of children on the part of one or both parties. They are there placed in a difficult predicament:

Consequently, if a traditional priest were to send his faithful to a diocesan tribunal, he would effectively condemn them to uncertainty, to never knowing for sure their marriage status. However, the whole purpose of an annulment tribunal is to establish moral certitude, on the basis of which a person can act. A tribunal that refuses to do this does not perform its duty and is worthless. The modernist tribunals almost always consider exclusively psychological reasons, such as lack of maturity, that make the marriage imprudent. They call this "lack of due discretion." However, this in no way proves that the marriage did not happen, and that the vows were without any object, as when one of the couple refuses true consent. Consequently, the decision of the modernist tribunals gives no certitude at all, and certainly does not give the person the ability to act as if he or she were not married and to enter into another marriage. This is why the Society of Saint Pius X refuses to marry people who have decrees of nullity from modernist tribunals.

The faithful who have an upright intention, who are seeking true certitude, and who would never dream of entering sacrilegiously into a subsequent doubtful marriage, consequently come to the Society asking us to resolve their doubt. Our priests know full well that it is not because there seems to be some good grounds that the marriage can be considered as null and void. It takes a tribunal to make such a declaration, after due consideration, following all the norms of canon law. The salvation of souls requires that the Society have such tribunals, and consequently the Church supplies jurisdiction for such judgments, as it does for marriages themselves.

Sometimes it is objected that the Society should study the case first, and then send it to a diocesan tribunal. The problem is that simply studying the case will not obtain the required moral certitude. It is only a canonical judgment, following the norms of marriage tribunals that can do this. We can only study it by erecting tribunals to treat these cases. Any other way of studying them would be misleading, unjust, and would perpetrate the uncertainty.

Another reason why Society priests refuse to refer their faithful to the Novus Ordo tribunals is to avoid confusion and scandal for the weak. How can the faithful be expected to accept our firm rulings, protecting the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage, if we were to send our faithful to tribunals who do not at all, in practice, accept them? Human nature is such that they will listen only to the answer they want to hear. It is only years later, after entering into a second, and possibly invalid second marriage, that they will have to grapple with their compromised conscience. It would be a total contradiction of all that we are doing to restore all things in Christ and to save souls, if we were to do this. The continued worsening of the crisis in the Church has made it more necessary than ever before for us to be very firm on this point.