St. Paddy's Day is A-OK

Throw back that fish, lad; break out the corned beef
By Rebecca S. Green
The Journal Gazette

Irish Catholics, and those Catholics who feel Irish, face an enormous dilemma this year.
March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day, which, if you’re keeping track, falls on a Friday during Lent. Catholics do not eat meat on Fridays during Lent, or at least they’re not supposed to.

Bishop John M. D’Arcy, head of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Roman Catholic Diocese, cleared up the liturgical murkiness Tuesday by issuing a dispensation allowing Roman Catholics within the diocese to partake of meat on that special Friday.

Here’s to corned beef and cabbage and beer.

The son of Irish immigrants and a Boston native, D’Arcy has a special affinity for St. Patrick, who converted all of Ireland from paganism to Christianity within 30 years.
“He was almost like a mystic, a person of intense prayer,” D’Arcy said.

In light of St. Patrick’s legacy, D’Arcy is asking all area Roman Catholics who take advantage of the dispensation to eat meat to also perform a holy act on or near March 17. After all, D’Arcy said, in Ireland the day is viewed as a day of holy obligation, and everyone goes to church. D’Arcy has some concerns about the way the day is celebrated in America because of drinking and the partying.

So D’Arcy will be holding a Mass in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at 12:05 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day. He intends to read a bit from the Confessions of St. Patrick about his life of prayer.

The decision to grant the dispensation, which is part of his authority as a bishop, came after one concerned Catholic called called diocesan offices over 100 times, asking whether D’Arcy intended to give one, something he had done in the past.

(Proof the lobbying pays off, I have called every hour on the hour since Ash Wednesday)