Meatless Fridays Go In Auckland

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31830, 7 November 1968, Page 12

Meatless Fridays Go In Auckland

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 6.

Roman Catholics in the Auckland Diocese now have their Church’s approval to abandon the traditional meatless Friday—but Roman Catholics elsewhere in New Zealand have yet to have this dietary law relaxed.

The latest issue of the Roman Catholic weekly newspaper “Zealandia,” official organ of the Auckland Diocese, confirms this in a leading article. The article says that an official announcement about the end of “Friday abstinence" was made in some Roman Catholic churches last Sunday. The new ruling, says “Zealandia,” would “make our practice uniform with other countries.”

Although the relaxation at present applied only to Auckland, a ruling for the rest of the country would be made by the Bishops’ conference. Friday abstinence had become an outdaded practice, the article continues. “In a food-rich country like New Zealand, going without meat on Friday could scarcely

be described as a hardship. There are too many easy substitutes for a solid meal.

“Its penitential value is pretty negligible and, being compulsory, it is looked on as a kind of technicality.”