Archdiocese dispenses with meatless obligation for St. Patrick’s Day

If you are a Catholic in the Archdiocese of Baltimore who relishes your annual bite of St. Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage, you won’t need to take a pass this year even though the 2023 feast day falls on a Friday during Lent.

Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori has granted Catholics in the archdiocese a dispensation from abstinence from eating meat on March 17. He joined the archbishop of Washington and bishop of  Arlington, Va., in offering the reprieve.

Catholics engage in fasting and abstinence as penitential practices that unite Catholics to the redemptive suffering and death of Jesus. Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent in remembrance of the day Christ died.  

In lieu of abstaining from meat on St. Patrick’s Day, Archbishop Lori encourages those members of the faithful of the archdiocese to engage in some additional act of prayer, service to the poor or almsgiving.  

If you’d still like to abstain from meat March 17, parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore will have plenty of options available with a bevy of fish fries offered at local parishes on Fridays during Lent. For a list of parishes offering fishing fries, visit https://www.archbalt.org/lenten-resources/directory-friday-fish-fries/

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