Was eating meat on Friday ever a mortal sin?
If so, was it because you basically had to despise the Catholic Church to do so?
Of course it was! Take out your catechism, Matthew and look up the laws of the church!
Had a conversation just the other day and was told by someone (not a religious) that it is not a sin to eat mean on Friday in Mexico.
I was surprised to hear that!
Abstinence from meat is a universal law of the Church. The Conciliar authorities changed the law for the NewChurch. In the Conciliar church, abstinence from meat may be changed to some other form of penance.
This came about because some of the Oceana bishops raised the abstinence issue during the Vatican 2 council. Their concern was that abstaining from meat is not a penitential sacrifice in many Pacific island nations as they eat very little meat anyway. On the other hand, in some of those countries, abstaining from seafood would be a penitential sacrifice. I don't know whether this ever made the actual Vatican 2 docuмents, but the Conciliar authorities made the change to allow bishops' conferences to request a substitute for the Friday abstinence which the Vatican authorities always approved.
In the United States, the bishops made haste to change the abstinence rules outside Lent and allow the faithful to substitute some other form of good work. Of course, the lifting of abstinence rules was proclaimed from the housetops. I challenge anyone to find a layman alive that remembers the substitution ever even being mentioned at the same time let alone solemnly taught.
What started out as a valid--a possibly a positively good--idea degenerated into sloth since the bishops looked to relax all spiritual goods rather than use this exception only for good reasons. Oceana had good reasons. Most of the rest of the world did not.
The same thing may have happened in Mexico, but this is a Conciliar rule, not a Catholic one.