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Are you saying Adam and Eve weren't having sex before they ate the apple, and there was no plan of them ever having children until they became aware of sin?

You then are saying that sex is sin, is that right?..(^g^)

Not at all. Just cause I said that women are enticing and it would be hard for Adam to resist didn't mean I was talking about sex. I would presume that Adam and Eve would have had children and populated Eden with their decendents, all of them free from Original Sin and destined for eternal life. After a while Eden may have gotten crowded, but I don't think that would be a problem for our infinite God.

After the Fall, the curse given to Eve is that she would have pain during childbirth. This, to me, leaves open the possibility of painless childbirth in Eden absent the Fall.

The sin in Eden was not sex, it was disobedience. And wanting to take the place of God.

I asked her to simply ask what she remember about meatless Friday, and she told my wife that she had kept it faithfully until one day she went to see a family that was very poor, and all they had to give their children that day was crackers and cheese with a piece of bacon on it, and she gave her sister one, and she ate it.

The next week or so, she went to church and confession, and told the priest what she had done, and he read her such a riot act that she stopped keeping meatless Friday altogether after that.

I don't doubt the story in the least and this is the perfect example of the Church, or at least this priest, shooting himself in the foot. This is exactly the type of no compassion behavior that causes people to flee.

You make no mention of whether the poor family was Catholic or not, but I will assume they were. Their condition (necessity) should negate their need to follow the abstinance rule. They should of course try as best as they can, but if need be they would not be held accountable.

Your sister visiting is also given leeway. You are not in control of what someone offers to you, especially when you are a guest. If I go to someone's house, if they invite me in for dinner, and it is Friday in Lent and they are serving meatloaf and don't mean offense I am acting more Christian like in accepting gladly what a host provides than I am in snubbing my host. How much more so if it is a poor family offering from what little they have.

The priest blew it here. Big time.