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Dolores wrote:
Quote from: 1917 Code of Canon Law
Canon 1252

Fast and abstinence are prescribed on the following days:  Ash Wednesday, the Fridays and Saturdays in Lent, Ember days, the Vigils of Pentecost, of the Assumption, of All Saints' Day, and of Christmas Day.
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This is not true. Saturdays in Lent are not days of "fast and abstinence" (ambiguity notwithstanding). Saturdays in Lent are days of fast, but one Saturday in Lent (varies each year, movable date), Ember Saturday, is a day of fast and partial abstinence.
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Partial abstinence is to be distinguished, but not separated, from complete abstinence. That is, days of partial abstinence are not "days of abstinence" (while days of abstinence retain the abstaining aspect of partial abstinence days).
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(The purpose of parentheses is, so you can readily get the simple version by reading the sentence excluding the parenthetical portion.)
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Saturdays in Lent are no different from Wednesdays in Lent (after Ash Wednesday) in this respect (fast and partial abstinence). Note that Holy Saturday is only halfway a Saturday of Lent (the morning half) since the Lenten fast and abstinence ceases at 1200 hours (noon).
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(Holy Saturday is never an Ember day.)
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(When you go to the trouble of publishing a summary of Canon like 1252 from the 1917 Code, you ought to be precise so readers won't misunderstand the law being referenced. This is not directed at Dolores but at the Catholic Encyclopedia from which she was quoting.)
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Likewise, Ember days are not all days of complete abstinence; only the Ember Friday of Lent, and also most other Fridays of the year. Exceptions include but are not limited to March 17th (can be a Friday in Lent), the Feast of St. Patrick in Ireland and in America, (the two most blessed places on earth evidently, for meat lovers that is, but not for snakes * ), and any Fridays on which certain major Feast Days fall. Ember days are of longstanding tradition, as shown by major Feast Days set off so that no conflict usually happens.
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Abstinence only is enjoined on the Fridays throughout the year.
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"Abstinence only" (meaning days without mandatory fasting, and either complete or partial abstinence but that's ambiguous) can refer generally speaking to most Fridays throughout the year, but not all. Exceptions include but are not limited to some major Feast Days (not Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is a Double of the 1st Class with privileged Octave of the 3rd order, unless your a CMRI follower because they have expunged all the Octaves on the Traditional Calendar under the pretext that Pope Pius XII, the "last valid Pope" threw them out under his legitimate authority) but not all Feast Days. The precise rules for how the rank of each Feast Day affects its fast and abstinence application are somewhat complicated (which is their excuse for the CMRI in recognizing the changes made under Pius XII even though they are unwilling to discuss the propriety of his appointing Annibale Bugnini to the post that would allow him to instigate the destruction of the Traditional Latin Mass).
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Fast only is ordained for all other days of Lent.
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This is true, sort of. This way there are actually 40 days of fast (almost) every Lent. These 40 days include Ash Wednesday and the morning half of Holy Saturday. Strictly speaking there are at most 39-1/2 fast days, and less when exceptions occur (such as St. Patrick's Day in Ireland and America, the two most blessed places, etc., see above   ).
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*This Cowboy   smiley mysteriously and magically becomes a Leprechaun with a lovely Irish brogue for St. Patrick's Day on CI.

I don't envy the people who attempt to put together these calendars for all of us. We have 2 this year that contradict each other on every questionable day in the month of December.
One of them shows fasting on the 7th, 8th, and 24th. The other shows nothing for all 3 of those days.

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Every year there is dread over the production and double and triple checking of the calendars. It's kind of a part time legal secretary job, that is, for a secretary of Canon law!  
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(Most lawyers think Canon law is a big, big joke, which BTW amounts to yet another sign of their own predestination.)
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In my experience those doing this work are overbooked and need more sleep. Besides trying to edit .pdf files with crossed, blurry, sleepy eyes, they are reduced to paying the closest attention to many other details that sometimes are of greater consequence such as which Feast days get moved or anticipated, where Easter falls, how that effects other movable feasts, and liturgical rank consequences of the relevant days and how many days they'll get calls at 5:00 am asking what color the altar cloth should be today (or arriving to find the altar has the wrong colors already). 
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They would like to have help but then they'd have to take the time training the volunteers what to look for, and it's the time in the first place that's the beginning of the problem.
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I sometimes wonder if the CMRI didn't make a decision on principle that was influenced by priority concerns, such that reverting to ALL the standing rules and conventions in effect prior to 1954 compared to those following 1958 would be too much more work that nobody would care about in the long run. Besides, they wouldn't have to bother remembering whether the Last Gospel is John 1 or something else, Holy Week wouldn't be such a time sponge, and they wouldn't have to worry about offending the Jews on Good Friday, etc.
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