[Question:]{.underline} Is the Friday abstinence to be observed when it falls on a First Class feast day?
[Answer:]{.underline} The Church’s traditional law on this question is very clear, for it states that on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation the obligations of abstinence, fast and abstinence, or fast alone, no longer apply (Canon 1252 of the 1917 Code. Consequently, if a Friday is a first class feast, but not a holy day of obligation, then it remains a day of abstinence or fast.
Traditionally there are 10 holy days of obligation for the universal Church. However, only those oblige in virtue of the precept to which Catholics of a particular country are bound. It is consequently only on those holy days, prescribed for a particular country, that Catholics are exempt from the obligation of abstinence. This includes such feasts as Christmas, the Circumcision, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, All Saints if they fall on a Friday. The abstinence is not to be observed on the feast day in such cases. However, Christmas and the Assumption both have vigils on which the abstinence ought to be observed. Nevertheless, this freedom from the obligation of abstinence does not include other holy days that fall on a Friday that are observed in the universal Church, but which are not observed in the local place, such as St. Joseph, Saints Peter & Paul, the Epiphany. On these first class feast days, as on other first class feast days that are not counted amongst the 10 holy days, a traditional Catholic ought to observe the abstinence, unless he is in Rome or in a place in which all ten holy days of obligation are observed.
Of course, the regulations of the post-conciliar church are quite different. The local Episcopal conference can make its own rules (Canon 1252 of the 1983 Code), and not infrequently exempts from all or at least from grave obligation of keeping abstinence on Fridays. The 1983 Code also recommends that the Friday abstinence be dispensed from on solemn occasions. This extends the exemption far beyond holy days of obligation. The end result is curious result that there is neither the obligation of the holy day (usually transferred to a Sunday) nor that of the abstinence. A religion without reverence is a religion without rules or obligations!
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.