The Hypocrisy of Roman Catholic "Fasting" During Lent
The Roman Catholic institution itself during the 40 days Lent period and in severity, during the holy week which even as a Baptist I observe but NOT in the Roman Catholic way. So far, it's going to be the Youth Congress in Bible Baptist Church-Katipunan for the next few days until Thursday. However there's going to be my topic on the hypocrisy of Roman Catholic "fasting". Based on the Roman Catholic doctrine as far as I can remember as a former Roman Catholic, I remembered how I got whipped for the offense of eating a sausage on Good Friday which they considered as "more severe" than disobedience to parents. Really? So would they rather have me disobey them than eat sausage on a Good Friday?! So would such people have me rather live wildly than eat meat on Lent? That's just plain stupidity and hypocrisy.
From Catholic.org here's some canon rules on meat abstinence:
1.) Canon 1250 says "All Fridays throughout the year and time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire church."
2.) Canon 1251 says, "Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the passion of the Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
However looking at their claim to fasting, I've seen it just as a time to eat delicious food that is not meat. I've eaten quite a few dishes that's delicious and that is not meat like vegetarian dishes or seafood. This meat is based on the flesh and organs of mammals and fowl. Here's what the Bible says about the SILLY tradition of Lent from the Good News Bible with highlights from me to highlight Catholic Bible vs. Catechism:
1.) Colossians 2:16-18, "So let NO ONE make rules about what you eat or drink or about holy days or the New Moon Festival or the Sabbath. All such things are only a shadow of things in the future; the reality is Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be condemned by anyone who claims to be superior because of special visions and who insists on false humility and the worship of angels. For no reason at all, such people are all puffed up by their human way of thinking."
2.) 1 Timothy 4:1-3 says, "The Spirit says clearly that some people will abandon the faith in later times: they will obey lying spirits and follow the teachings of demons. Such teachings are spread by deceitful liars, whose consciences are dead as if burnt with a hot iron. Such people teach that it is wrong to marry and to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten, after a prayer of thanks by those who are believers and have come to know the truth."
Also I would pretty like to notice that many Roman Catholics tend to behave very well during Lent. When I was still a Roman Catholic, I really thought that walking all the way from the entrance to the altar, praying the Rosary, Confessionals, sacraments, etc. would change my life. I was very dead wrong indeed! In fact, while I'm not saying all Roman Catholics are criminals or hoodlums, however sad to say but the system has become a license to sin like "If you can keep X out of ten commandments, you're saved." because God's standard for man to earn his salvation is SINLESS PERFECTION (James 2:10-11).
I've seen many Roman Catholics who tend to be at their best during Lent. They condemn others for eating meat like I nearly got into a fight with some annoying Roman Catholic former parishioners because they saw me openly eat some beef steak on Ash Wednesday and that I didn't get marked with my '666' for quite some time. I expressed my freedom in Christ, they called me a heretic. What is stupid is that after Holy Week ends, everybody goes back to their sinful lives like homosexuals and their sodomy, adulterers and their live-in partners, adulteresses and stealing other women's husbands, pornography addicts (many of them are the Roman Catholic Pharisees) and their obsession with all sorts of filth (especially those altar boy raping Pharisees), etc. while sinfully believing in works salvation.
Clearly that's just like Ahab's sackcloth and ashes in 1 Kings 21:27- but it was all but pretense because Ahab's actions proved he was still a real enemy of God and a child of the Devil in the next succeeding chapter! Would have Ahab truly repented, the curse may have even been uplifted but it soon destroyed his household after his tragic death.