The views above only give us simplistic, tautological non-explanations: the bad guys aren't bad for any ideological reason, nor because of greed and cupidity. They are bad simply because they are bad, there's nothing else to say. They are monsters, they're wicked, the evil ones, they're different from "us". "We" are good people, "we" are "normal". These notions of monstrosity and normality are introduced as absolutely transcendent, they have neither a history nor an evolution. I heard a rumour that not all paedophiles are catholic and vice-versa.
The �no meat on Friday thing� is more practice and discipline (penance) than dogma and has since 1966 been suggestively limited to the period of Lent. Friday is always a day of repentance all year round. This means you are supposed to do penance every Friday.
All these centuries the church took care of that for you by telling you that a 'good' discipline was to not eat meat (probably whilst sequestering the meat for the Abbot and local monastery). The Church then (eventually) decided you were grown up enough now to decide for yourself how you will do penance for the sins of the world every Friday.