A Lenten Reality Check

Scrolling through social media recently, I encountered a claim repeated so often—and with such confidence—that it has apparently passed into the realm of “common Catholic knowledge”: chicken is fine on Fridays of Lent. Some even go further, insisting that only red meat is prohibited.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is simply not true.

Which means it’s time for a Lenten reality check.

What the Church Actually Requires

The Church’s teaching on Friday abstinence is neither vague nor obscure. It is stated plainly in the Code of Canon Law.

Canon 1251 reads:

“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.”

Contrary to a common assumption, the Church never abolished Friday abstinence. Catholics are still called to do penance every Friday of the year in remembrance of the Passion of Christ.

What did change—at least in certain countries—was the form that penance may take outside of Lent.

In the United States, the bishops permit Catholics, on Fridays outside of Lent, to substitute another penitential practice in place of abstinence from meat. Prayer, almsgiving, or another intentional act of self-denial may be chosen instead. This is an allowance, not a repeal.

During Lent, however, no such substitution is permitted. On the Fridays of Lent, abstinence from meat is obligatory.

And this is where the present confusion seems to arise.

The Church has never defined “meat” as “red meat,” nor has she carved out exceptions for poultry, white meat, or personal culinary theories. In both historical usage and current ecclesial law, meat refers to the flesh of warm-blooded animals.

Beef qualifies. Pork qualifies. Lamb qualifies.
And yes—chicken qualifies as well.

There is no ambiguity here. Chicken is meat. Eating it on a Friday of Lent violates the Church’s law of abstinence.

This Was Never About Diet

The Church’s law of abstinence was never meant to function as a dietary guideline, a nutritional preference, or a puzzle to be solved with clever substitutions. It was—and remains—a penitential act ordered toward remembrance of the Cross.

Meat, historically, was associated with celebration, abundance, and festivity. To abstain from it on Fridays was a small but tangible way of marking the day as different—a day shaped by sacrifice rather than comfort. The point was not simply to eat something else, but to feel, however lightly, the absence of what one might otherwise enjoy.

When abstinence is reduced to finding the most satisfying alternative—when steak is replaced with chicken, or penance with a loophole—the interior meaning is quietly hollowed out. The external form may appear intact, but the spirit of the law has already been lost.

Friday abstinence is a weekly invitation to unite oneself, however modestly, to the Passion of Christ. It is meant to interrupt routine, to resist ease, and to cultivate obedience through something concrete and ordinary. In that sense, its very simplicity is its power.

The question, then, was never “Does this technically count?”
It was always “Does this actually cost me something?”

Lent sharpens this call. The Church removes the option of substitution not to burden the faithful, but to focus them—to train the will through a shared, embodied act of remembrance. The sacrifice is small, but the discipline it forms is not.

Penance that costs nothing forms nothing.

Obedience Is the Point

At first glance, this may all seem like a small, even trivial matter. Chicken instead of fish. A technical mistake. Hardly the stuff of great moral drama.

But that is precisely why it matters.

The spiritual life is not built primarily on grand gestures or heroic moments. It is built on obedience in ordinary things—small, unremarkable acts that train the will to submit itself to something beyond personal preference.

As the old principle goes: if one cannot be obedient in small things, how can one be expected to be obedient in large things?

Friday abstinence is one of the simplest acts of obedience the Church asks of the faithful. It requires no public display, no special knowledge, and no extraordinary effort. It asks only that one trust the Church enough to say no to oneself in a modest, embodied way.

When that small act is dismissed as optional, outdated, or inconvenient—when it is quietly redefined to accommodate comfort rather than sacrifice—the loss is not merely legal. It is formative. A habit of selective obedience begins to take root.

And habits formed in small matters rarely remain small.

The Church does not ask for Friday abstinence because meat is sinful, or because fish is spiritually superior. She asks for it because obedience itself is a school of freedom. It loosens the grip of the self and reorients the will toward God through submission to legitimate authority.

Lent, then, is not about culinary restrictions. It is about learning again how to obey—humbly, concretely, and without negotiation—so that when greater sacrifices are demanded, the soul is already trained to respond.

A Small Sacrifice, Taken Seriously

None of this is meant to shame, scandalize, or police the dinner plates of the faithful. Many Catholics have acted in good faith, repeating what they were told or what “everyone seems to know.” Poor catechesis, not malice, is usually the culprit.

But Lent is precisely the time for course correction.

Friday abstinence is not a test of cleverness, nor an exercise in finding the most comfortable workaround. It is a shared act of remembrance—simple, concrete, and intentionally modest—by which the Church asks her children to pause, obey, and recall the Cross.

Chicken on Fridays of Lent is not permitted. That much is clear.
But the deeper invitation goes further than compliance.

Lent asks us to recover the habit of obedience in small things, to accept minor inconveniences without resentment, and to allow even ordinary meals to become occasions of remembrance and restraint.

The sacrifice is small.
The formation it offers is not.

And that, ultimately, is the point.

For further reading:

Code of Canon Law, canon 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.”
This canon establishes Friday as a penitential day throughout the year and makes clear that abstinence from meat is the normative form of that penance.

Code of Canon Law, canon 1250:
“The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.”
This canon clarifies that Friday penance was never abolished; only its form may be regulated by legitimate authority.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence (1966):
The bishops of the United States permit the substitution of another penitential act in place of abstinence from meat on Fridays outside of Lent, but explicitly retain mandatory abstinence on Fridays of Lent. This represents a pastoral allowance, not a suppression of the Church’s penitential discipline.

Code of Canon Law, canon 1253:
“The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.”
This canon provides the juridical basis for episcopal conferences to allow substitutions—but only where they have explicitly done so.

On the definition of meat:
In Catholic moral and canonical tradition, “meat” refers to the flesh of warm-blooded animals. Poultry therefore falls under the law of abstinence. Fish and other cold-blooded animals have historically been permitted, not because of theological symbolism, but because of longstanding disciplinary practice.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 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.”
This paragraph situates Friday penance within the Church’s broader call to conversion and interior reform.