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12. Is it not superstitious to abstain from certain kinds of food?

It is superstitious, if we abstain from certain food as if it were evil and unclean in itself, as some heretics asserted; 1 but it is not so by any means if we do it in the spirit of obedience and penance, as the Catholic Church prescribes. 2

13. But does not our Saviour clearly say: 'Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man'?

Yes; but the disobedience which proceeds from the heart defiles him (Matt. xv. 11, 18), as it is proved by the fall of our first parents.