Saturday, December 13, 1997

For piety's sake, abandon any return to meatless Fridays for Catholics

By Bob Springer / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Piety on parade. Is there anything more tiresome than watching someone else parade his piety?

Genuine piety -- selfless and sincere, the kind that was displayed, say, by Mother Teresa, or is quietly shown daily by millions the world over -- is a thing of humbling beauty and inspiration. But the kind that likes to advertise itself, to dress itself up in a neon halo and shout, "Look at me! See how much closer to heaven I am than you?" is, well, unseemly.

My cynical side suspects that a touch of that less-than-devout brand may be at the heart of a move by conservative elements of the Roman Catholic Church in this country to return Catholics to abstaining from meat on Fridays. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops voted earlier this month to study a return to meatless Fridays. The idea was recommended by the 300-member conference's Pro-Life Committee.

Advocates intend it as a way for Catholics to express them selves publicly against abortion, euthanasia, war, violence, drugs and other attacks on human life and dignity.

Until the practice was ended in the 1960s in the wake of Vatican II's ecumenical challenge to the church, avoiding meat on Fridays was a way for American Catholics to profess their faith publicly. It was supposed to be a way to display one's belief in the tenets of atonement and penance, to echo a fearless courage in the face of ancient persecution and to reverentially signify gratitude for salvation through Jesus' death on the cross, which Catholic doctrine holds occurred on a Friday.

By the time the practice was ended, though, it had fallen into a familiar trap: It had become a symbol without substance. Empty symbols have a nasty but quite predictable way of ridiculing their creation, of becoming a mockery -- and, therefore, a danger -- to the institution that gave them life.

So it is just as well, as far as I'm concerned, that meatless Fridays went the way of Latin Mass and altar boys. That isn't to say I think fasting is bad. On the contrary, fasting is fine. It should be encouraged -- but as a personal act of sacrifice, willingly done. Fasting is a powerful means of seeking person al spiritual redemption, and is a well-known collective weapon in advancing political or social change.

It loses its charge, its meaning, however, when made oblig atory.

The Rev. Jerry Pokorsky, a diocesan priest in Arlington, Va., has been working for nearly 15 years to return Catholics to meatless Fridays. "We have an obligation as Catholics to do penance on Fridays. And I think it's a beautiful expression of our solidarity with the unborn," he was quoted in an Associat ed Press dispatch from the bishops' meeting in Washington, D.C.

Pokorsky unmasks the idea's truer purpose. There is precious little "our," though, among Americans in general and American Catholics in particular, in the solidarity with the unborn to which he makes reference.

My guess is that trying to advance meatless Fridays as a religious expression of devotion, to dress it up piously while disguising its true political aim, won't sell with a majority of America's nearly 60 million Catholics. Certainly not with this one.

(Bob Springer is commentary editor for the Akron Beacon Journal, 44 E. Exchange St., Akron, Ohio, 44328.)

(c) 1997, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).

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