I recently saw this post, where the comments say that a substitute is required when not abstaining from meat every Friday:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/s/xAmZLIlk01

I thought I was falsely remembering figuring out that it can be skipped without a substitute, then I found this, which reveals my memory is correct:

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-friday-penance-required

It seemed debatable to me, so I searched for links to the article on r/catholicism and found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/s/OTaMhW5zuu

The part saying “it’s demanded of you and we are obligated to obey” seems to indicate that the commenter didn’t completely read the article, but this part convinced me:

You see in our society, we face many sins. We do what feels good and the world encourages us to do whatever feels good. Porn, over indulging, all sorts of things.

When we deny ourselves things we eat, we grow stronger at saying no to sin. This is why fasting is such a good practice.

If we can say no to things we need, then we can say no to things we don’t need.

Sin that I can grow stronger at saying no to includes cowardice. That’s the most exciting part for me.

Instead of abstaining from meat, I will stop using Reddit and Lemmy on Fridays. I will probaly sacrifice more in the future.