Chapter II. On Causes Excusing from Fasting

The causes excusing from fasting are usually reduced chiefly to three:

1st. to impossibility, whether physical or moral;

2nd. to piety or charity;

3rd. to dispensation, as was said concerning the other precepts.

Question 1. Who are those who certainly are excused from the law of fasting?

Response. Certainly excused are: 1st. the poor begging from door to door; 2nd. the sick, the infirm, the convalescent, and the weak, and all those who, unless they take something often during the day, suffer notable headache or dizziness; 3rd. all those who exercise works that are very laborious, e.g., stonecutters, farmers, potters, weavers, wool-workers, fullers, porters, wagon-drivers, sailors who row, blacksmiths, carpenters and masons, runners who carry letters, bakers, shoemakers, etc. - 4th. Pregnant or nursing women, etc. etc.

To these and many others having been enumerated, Kenrick, n. 60, adds these things: "If we add the special circumstances of these regions, it will easily appear that few are held obligated to this law, which formerly was observed so strictly. Most of the faithful indeed in these provinces are occupied either in cultivating fields or in other heavy labor; besides which, fasting-foods by which someone eating once per day may be sufficiently restored are not easily procured, and the things which grow from American soil are said not to contain very much juice and nourishment. Therefore missionaries must take care lest, by clinging too closely to the old discipline, they provide some persons an occasion of sinning out of error." Cf. Kenrick, tract. 4, part. 2, nn. 49 and seq. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, nn. 1033 and seq.

Question 2. Are all those excused from fasting who, although they are occupied with laborious work, are nevertheless so robust that they can easily fast?

Response. Affirmatively, probably; and the reason is that in all these matters attention must be paid to that which happens commonly and of itself, not to exceptions. Besides, if it were otherwise, the door would now be opened to many scruples and anxieties. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 1043.

It is useless to enumerate many other cases, about which theologians treat. Yet it must always be kept before the eyes that the Church, as a pious mother, certainly wills the exercise of penance, but not the diminution of labor, or some grave extrinsic harm. But if there is doubt concerning the sufficiency of the excusing cause, recourse should be had to dispensation. - Finally it is helpful here to report the concession made to American soldiers and sailors, concerning which Kenrick speaks thus: "Pius IX conceded, at the prayers of the Bishop of Buffalo, that American soldiers and sailors should universally be exempted from the law of abstinence, six days excepted, namely Ash Wednesday, the last three days of Holy Week, and on the Vigil of the Assumption of the B. V. M. and of the Nativity of the Lord. This is to be understood of those who actually serve in camps, ships, and garrisons, but not those who are absent by permission. Families using a common table with them enjoy that privilege, but not those which dwell far away." - Cf. Kenrick, tract. 4, part. 2, n. 37. Among the faculties conceded by Apostolic authority and to be valid during the war in the Army and Navy of the Federated States of North America, the sixteenth is described thus: - "By virtue of the Pontifical indult all who belong to the Army and Navy are dispensed from fasting and may eat meat, except on Ash Wednesday, the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord, Friday of Holy Week, and before noon of Holy Saturday."

Here finally must be commemorated the concession recently made "in favor of laborers in the Federated States of America," by virtue of which there is granted "the faculty to individual Ordinaries for ten years of permitting the use of meat in those circumstances of places and persons in which they shall judge that a true difficulty of observing the common law of abstinence exists. But from this permission, besides all the Fridays of the whole year, there must also be excluded Ash Wednesday, the whole time of Holy Week, and the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord. But on those days on which the use of meat is permitted by the Ordinary, this permission for those obligated to fasting must be extended only to the single meal. A concession of this kind must be considered made not only to individual laborers, but also to their families, so that all members of the same participate in the indult."

But if you ask what here is signified by the name "laborers," it seems that the response must be that by this word are to be understood, not all who apply themselves to any labor whatever, but only those whom in English we are accustomed to designate by the word "workingmen." - This is gathered both from the purpose of the concession and from the mind of those who petitioned for it. Cf. Amer. Eccl. Review, vol. 12, p. 425.

§ 1. Not only local Ordinaries, but also pastors, in individual cases and for a just cause, can dispense individual faithful subject to them and individual families subject to them, even outside the territory, and in their own territory also travelers, from the common law concerning the observance of feasts and likewise concerning the observance of abstinence and fasting, or even of both.

§ 2. Ordinaries, on account of a peculiar cause of a great concourse of people or of public health, can also dispense the whole diocese or place from fasting and from abstinence, or even from both laws at once.

§ 3. In an exempt clerical religion the Superiors have the same power of dispensing in the manner of a pastor, as regards the persons mentioned in can. 514, § 1 (Can. 1245).