Why does any Archbishop get to decide if alligator is okay for Lent?
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The appropriate Canon law says:
Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays [...] (emphasis mine).
In other words, the rules say that the Archbishop has the authority to decide what can be eaten on Fridays in his diocese (he doesn't have to declare alligator to be 'seafood' - that's just a media invention). That doesn't of course mean his decisions apply to all of Catholicism.
See also this question.
Upvote:2
Why does any Archbishop get to decide if alligator is okay for Lent?
When he officially gets the go ahead for the conference of Bishops in a particular region or country to do so, the USCCB in this case.
First of all this is a question of Church discipline and not Church doctrine. A second point is that it deals with the local church only at the regional level and not the universal Church level.
As D. J. Clayworth points outs, the archbishop has the authority to do so by virtue of Canon Law. But in order to do so, he has to declare alligator seafood and get the local episcopal conference to agree with him. After all do not alligators live in water?
Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter, but seafood is allowed. Three years ago, when Jim Piculas was trying to settle a debate among his friends about whether gator qualified as seafood, he wrote a letter to the archbishop of New Orleans to ask.
His letter must have been pretty zealous, because not long after he wrote it, he got a response from Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond saying: "Yes, the alligator's considered in the fish family, and I agree with you — God has created a magnificent creature that is important to the state of Louisiana, and it is considered seafood." - Forget Fish Fridays: In Louisiana, Gator Is On The Lenten Menu
By the way you can add beaver, muskrat and foods to such a list in various other regions or local churches. See the following article: TEN WEIRD, WONDERFUL FOODS FOR LENT.
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