Alligator OK to eat on Lenten Fridays, archbishop clarifies

[rug]

Archbishop Gregory Aymond's letter in response to a request to eat alligator on a Friday in Lent. Credit: Archdiocese of New Orleans.

By Carl Bunderson

New Orleans, La., Feb 15, 2013 / 04:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Alligator is permissible to eat on Fridays of Lent, the archbishop of New Orleans assured a conscientious parishioner, and his approval has been backed by the national bishops' conference.

“Concerning the question if alligator is acceptable to eat during the Lenten season...yes, the alligator is considered in the fish family,” Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond wrote in a 2010 letter provided to CNA by the New Orleans archdiocese Feb. 15.

The archbishop said he agreed with the parishioner that the alligator is a “magnificent creature that is important to the state of Louisiana” and which is also “considered seafood.”

The Code of Canon Law says, “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.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/alligator-ok-to-eat-on-lenten-fridays-archbishop-clarifies/

I'm glad that's settled.

[LiberalEsto]

1. So the python was correct

when it swallowed that gator last week.

[rug]

2. A very observant snake it is.

[goldent]

3. I heard it tastes like chicken

That sounds like cheating to me. Of course, I don't see much alligator around here, so I probably won't get a chance of trying it.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

4. Everybody knows that alligator is a fish.

In the same vein, according to the Talmud, a rabbit chews the cud.

[okasha]

5. Sounds like penance to me.

Does this also apply if the gator is "harvested"on land? Or do you have to catch him in the water?

[rug]

6. That ssounds like the 17th century religious wars.

[okasha]

7. One can avoid the conundrum

simply by not eating alligators. Gators and wild hogs are the only two South Texas critters that truly scare me. I prefer not to be within a couple hundred yards of either one, not even dead and on my plate.

[IrishAyes]

8. Okasha, I'm with you.

Especially knowing that alligators can chase their prey into the trees! And they love to eat us. So if I saw that thing on my plate, I'd be absolutely convinced it might reconstitute itself and take out after me. I'm getting older and slower, so I can't run from danger the way I used to. Thirty years ago I would've stood a chance. But now I have to think about it before even standing up, then wait to see if my knees intend to work, growl at my feet to 'get a move on!' .... you know the drill. I'd be low hanging fruit for Alli.

[okasha]

9. LOL--I feel more like I'd be

low-lying fruit. The knees aren't what they used to be when I climbed up into Grandpa's apple tree to read uninterrupted by the grown-ups on a summer afternoon.

[IrishAyes]

10. You must have had a blessed childhood. I hid in trees too!

[okasha]

11. Summers on my grandparents' farm

were wonderful. My cousins and I did all sorts of things that would have made our mothers faint, like galloping and jumping the horses bareback--and occasionally falling off them.

And it was pretty much the only time we could practice our Cherokee traditions. That was invaluable, though I also treasured the Ursuline nuns who taught me the other nine months of the year. They were formidable ladies who showed just how strong women could be spiritually and intellectually.

[IrishAyes]

12. While I definitely believe women should and someday will be Catholic priests -

Mother Theresa herself told JPII to his dear face that we'd make better ones! - I always laugh when people think male priests overrun the nuns. I never knew a priest in my life that wasn't just a little afraid of them, as it should be.

[okasha]

13. I hope Papa Francis will consider

the experience of the Episcopal Church on the subject. Women do make good priests. The matter as it stands now, with a number of women who have gone "rogue" and been ordained without permission of the hierarchy, is precisely how the movement began in the Episcopal Church.

The nuns at my school were awesome. Not only did they manage the priests and the bishop, we students were convinced that God had a red telephone for taking Mother Superior's calls.

[IrishAyes]

14. For my money,

having nuns (and especially Mothers Superior) worthy of deep respect and love also makes it easier for us to accept and receive more blessings from the Queen of Heaven. I hold with those who cannot imagine her Son turning down any request from his mother. To any protestants reading this, let me say: most of realize we don't need permission or help from anyone to speak directly to our sweet Savior. But I find the idea of turning down intercession on our behalf from the rest of the heavenly kingdom to be a ludicrous waste of resources, not to mention a certain amount of undeserved disrespect. Most people of any religion believe in the efficacy of intercessory prayer by other humans on earth, and they believe in an afterlife usually. It isn't even consistent to imagine there's no use petitioning those who've crossed over before us. Especially the very Mother of God. I'm rather fond of St. Francis too, who even preached to the birds and Brother Sun and Sister Moon. It's a thing of incredible beauty, and we can only see through a glass darkly for now.

[okasha]

15. When I was a practicing Episcopalian--

--and even before that, when my mom was doing her level best to make a Baptist of me--I believed absolutely in the mercy and power of Our Lady. I still do, though I may pray to her under a different name. As a panentheist, I see her both as an earthly woman and as a feminine face of the Divine Being present in every atom of the Universe. For me she is not only Mary but White Buffalo Woman and Kwan Yin and Holy Wisdom and many others--the Mother of all Creation.

I also have a word with St. Francis every now and then. He is one of the truly great teachers of how to live in right relationship to both Creator and Creation. Many years ago, I found an abandoned kitten in a grocery store parking lot. I fed him, then scooped him up and drove for the vet"s like the proverbial bat. I could tell there was something broken in his hindquarters, and he had huge patches of white and what looked like burns in his black fur. (Turned out to be "only" ringworm.) I named him Martin Francis, for San Madtin de Porres and Francis of Assissi.

[okasha]

16. Hit wrong button. Posting from

trigger-happy phone.

As I was about to say, I also hung a St Francis medal on his collar because I figured he needed all the help he could get.

[IrishAyes]

17. Yeah, I have a good dose of pantheist in me too. Appreciate your thoughts there, especially about

Our Lady and Francis. I'll bet you're right. My experience with animism included a cure I found for PTSD nightmares once I discovered my spirit guide's likeness on a set of warm flannel sheets. Crawled between those and never had another bad dream at all. Still don't.

As for other matters, I knew I was going to buy this house even before I saw it IRL. I could tell it was a wreck from the online pictures, but for some reason it exerted a strong pull on me. After I got here and bought it, I found out the 1847 log cabin around which the house had been built in 1915, had been a slave cabin until 1865. This was frontier at the time, not a southern plantation, so that log cabin was built to withstand anything man or nature could hurl at it. I think people's spirits infuse inanimate objects even after they've left the physical plane. Yet another reason the place went so cheap - lots of people think it's haunted. Well, I wouldn't want to be overrun with the koffee klatch crowd anyway, and I certainly don't have to worry about them showing up on my doorstep. Partly since I've already outlasted other occupants in many years, the former OATS bus driver I used to war with has decided I must be a literal - I mean LITERAL - witch. Actors and ballplayers are not half as superstitious as this bunch.