What do the religion of roman catholicism eat?

Answer 1

Catholics are allowed to eat any foods. However there are certain days on which they should abstain from eating meat (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday).

Many years ago they did not eat meat on any Friday, to mark it as a special day (the day of the crucifixion of Christ), but that rule was abolished.

On fast days they should eat less but the church does not expect people to go without food altogether on those days.

Answer 2

They can eat anything except meat on Fridays and other holy days, such as during Lent.

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Catholic AnswerFirst, it should be mentioned that it's just Catholic, not Roman Catholic. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is never used by the official Catholic Church.

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Secondly, Catholics live in every country in the world, and they have no special diet. Since the new Code of Canon Law was issued in 1983 the onlyconstriction on diets is that mentioned above:

Here is the paragraph from the Catechism:

1438 The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church's penitential practice.36 These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works).

Now the "penance" prescribed for Fridays is spelled out in Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution, Paenitemini, which I have attached for you. The relevant regulations start at the bottom of page 5. At the top of page 6:

... abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation . . .

And from Code of Canon Law, translation prepared under the auspices of the Canon Law Society of America, Nihil obstat: + Anthony J. Bevilacqua, J.C.D.; Imprimatur: Rev. Msgr. John F. Donoghue, Canon Law Society of America, Washington D.C.:

CHAPTER II : DAYS OF PENANCE

Can. 1249 All Christ's faithful are obliged by divine law, each in his or her own way, to do penance. However, so that all may be joined together in a certain common practice of penance, days of penance are prescribed. On these days the faithful are in a special manner to devote themselves to prayer, to engage in works of piety and charity, and to deny themselves, by fulfilling their obligations more faithfully and especially by observing the fast and abstinence which the following canons prescribe.

Can. 1250 The days and times of penance for the universal Church are each Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.

Can. 1251 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. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Can. 1252 The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Pastors of souls and parents are to ensure that even those who by reason of their age are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence, are taught the true meaning of penance.

Can. 1253 The Episcopal Conference can determine more particular ways in which fasting and abstinence are to be observed. In place of abstinence or fasting it can substitute, in whole or in part, other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website:

Abstinence-In the United States, this penitential practice consists of refraining from the consumption of meat. The Latin Church's requirement of abstinence binds Catholics after they have celebrated their fourteenth birthday, and it is practiced on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and the Fridays during Lent. Pastors and parents are encouraged to see that children who are not bound by the obligation to fast and abstain are led to appreciate an authentic sense of penance.

Now, the Bishops in the United States in 1966 modified the practice to be more inclusive while relaxing the absolute requirement to abstain from meat on Friday, if you have a good reason and substitute another more meaningful penance, below is the appropriate material from the Bishops' document concerning Friday abstinence. Please note, that although they relaxed the absolute abstinence from meat, they made the Friday abstinence harsher and more demanding, as they are asking us to do additional things on top of Friday abstinence; however they specifically mention that they "hope" we continue Friday abstinence in additional to further penances which they urge us to add. Please note that all they did was removed the stigma of sin from Friday abstinence. I would particularly draw your attention to the words that I have bolded below:

19. Changing circumstances, including economic, dietary, and social

elements, have made some of our people feel that the renunciation of

the eating of meat is not always and for everyone the most effective

means of practicing penance. Meat was once an exceptional form of

food; now it is commonplace.

20. Accordingly, since the spirit of penance primarily suggests that we

discipline ourselves in that which we enjoy most, to many in our day

abstinence from meat no longer implies penance, while renunciation

of other things would be more penitential.

21. For these and related reasons, the Catholic bishops of the United

States, far from downgrading the traditional penitential observance of

Friday, and motivated precisely by the desire to give the spirit of

penance greater vitality, especially on Fridays, the day that Jesus died,

urge our Catholic people henceforth to be guided by the following

norms.

22. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance

throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be

mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are

called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified.

23. Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the

entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly

Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a

day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the

passion of Jesus Christ.

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.

Our expectation

is based on the following considerations:

a. We shall thus freely and out of love for Christ

Crucified show our solidarity with the generations of

believers to whom this practice frequently became,

especially in times of persecution and of great poverty,

no mean evidence of fidelity to Christ and His Church.

b. We shall thus also remind ourselves that as

Christians, although immersed in the world and sharing

its life, we must preserve a saving and necessary

difference from the spirit of the world. Our deliberate,

personal abstinence from meat, more especially because

no longer required by law, will be an outward sign of

inward spiritual values that we cherish.

25. Every Catholic Christian understands that the fast and

abstinence regulations admit of change, unlike the

commandments and precepts of that unchanging divine

moral law which the Church must today and always defend

as immutable. This said, 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. We stress this so that "no"

scrupulosity will enter into examinations of conscience,

confessions, or personal decisions on this point.

26. Perhaps we should warn those who decide to keep the

Friday abstinence for reasons of personal piety and special

love that they must not pass judgment on those who elect to

substitute other penitential observances. Friday, please God,

will acquire among us other forms of penitential witness which

may become as much a part of the devout way of life in the future

as Friday abstinence from meat. In this connection we have

foremost in mind the modern need for self-discipline in the use of

stimulants and for a renewed emphasis on the virtue of

temperance, especially in the use of Alcoholic Beverages.

27. It would bring great glory to God and good to souls if Fridays

found our people doing volunteer work in hospitals, visiting the

sick, serving the needs of the aged and the lonely, instructing the

young in the Faith, participating as Christians in community

affairs, and meeting our obligations to our families, our friends,

our neighbors, and our community, including our parishes, with a

special zeal born of the desire to add the merit of penance to the

other virtues exercised in good works born of living faith.

28. In summary, let it not be said that by this action, implementing

the spirit of renewal coming out of the Council, we have abolished

Friday, repudiated the holy traditions of our fathers, or diminished

the insistence of the Church on the fact of sin and the need for

penance. Rather, let it be proved by the spirit in which we enter

upon prayer and penance, not excluding fast and abstinence freely

chosen, that these present decisions and recommendations of this

conference of bishops will herald a new birth of loving faith and

more profound penitential conversion, by both of which we

become one with Christ, mature sons of God, and servants of

God's people.

I might add that the Bishops of England just reinstated the sin element of Friday abstinence for the very reason that the people did not understand that they must abstain on Friday and should actually be doing more than was required of them under the old law.