When did the practice of Friday abstinence from meat begin?
In the very earliest ages of the Church. The practice is mentioned in the Didache or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, a booklet written by one of the immediate followers of the Apostles in the year 90. 1189. Who said that every man will go to hell if he eats meat on Friday? No one. The Catholic Church says that it is a mortal sin for a Catholic to eat meat on Friday knowingly and wilfully, without a sufficiently grave and excusing reason. Then that Church says that if a man dies in unrepented mortal sin, he will go to hell. 1190. I don’t blame Catholics for voluntarily abstaining from meat on Fridays, but to do so because ordered to do so is making a virtue of necessity. That is not true. No Catholic is physically compelled to abstain from meat on Fridays. It is a moral obligation, adding the virtue of obedience to that of Christian mortification. On your method of reasoning you should say that a man should voluntarily abstain from stealing, and that it is wrong to do so because God ha
