19 July 2007

St Patricks Day Moved

Fr Peter Jones, of the Liturgy Commission:
"St Patrick's Day is all about the religious aspect of the feast and mass on the day. It's not about whether it's a public holiday or not, it's not about whether sports events and parades take place,"

Sinead Grace, of Tourism Ireland:
"I wouldn't imagine too many people are aware of the religious aspect."


So next year, St Patrick's Day is being moved from it's traditional March 17th date to March 15th. This has to happen as March 17th is Monday of Holy Week, leading up to Easter. It is always the case that Saints days are moved when they conflict with other more important dates in the Church calendar. Normally, the event is moved to the first convenient date afterwards, but the Vatican has given special dispensation to move the celebrations forward two days to the 15th, which is a Saturday.

I presume this is to allow all the people who are unaware of the real point of St Patrick's Day to continue to abuse it as a reason for getting as drunk as possible.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only reason they'll be moving it is so they can ensure the Catholic priests have sobored up in time for Holy Week.

I mean... they certainly use St Patricks Day as an excuse to have a few too many.

Well St Patricks Day... or Saturday... or Sunday... or...

Anonymous said...

I think the guy above has a valid point and is a well informed blog commenter.

Like the new theme by the way!

Jay said...

Why am I not surprised you agree? It's almost like you were the same person.....

Anonymous said...

This litergical move of St. Patrick's day to Saturday March 15 is not true for the U.S. where St. Joseph's day has already been moved from March 19 to March 15. St Parick's day here is orphaned (off the litergical calendar) and might be celebrated on March 14 by those churches where observation is desired.