{"id":51049,"date":"2020-03-08T17:47:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T22:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=51049"},"modified":"2020-03-15T19:20:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T00:20:40","slug":"st-patricks-day-should-be-a-solemnity-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/08\/st-patricks-day-should-be-a-solemnity-in-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Patrick\u2019s Day should be a Solemnity in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post I am making a very simple proposal, that the USCCB upgrade the celebration of St. Patrick\u2019s Day to the status of Solemnity.<\/p>\n

There has always been a close connection between Ireland and the United States.\u00a0 Many believe that St. Brendan the Navigator was the first to discover present-day North America during his mythical voyage during the years 512\u2013530. St. Brendan\u2019s travel log the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis<\/em> was a medieval bestseller. Today not all historians would agree that St. Brendan made it to America, although Tim Pat Severin\u2019s famous 1976 Brendan Voyage<\/em> where he retraced the famous itinerary laid out in the Navagatio<\/a><\/em> has proven that it was quite possible that America was the destination of Brendan\u2019s voyage (Severin\u2019s book is available here<\/a> and some video footage here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

However, for those who prefer more rigorous historical proof, recent research has found very early evidence for the celebration of St. Patrick\u2019s Day in the present-day United States.\u00a0 The first historically verifiable Irish priest in North America was Fr. Ricardo Artur (Richard Arthur). He was pastor of St. Augustine, FL from 1597 -1606.\u00a0 And obviously one of the most important pastoral initiatives he introduced to his parish was the celebration of St. Patrick\u2019s Day. Recently discovered records<\/a> from Spain\u2019s archives of her American colonies yielded a single curious entry: gunpowder expenditures for shooting off cannons during a 1601 St. Patrick\u2019s Day celebration in St. Augustine, Florida. This means that St. Patrick\u2019s Day has been a major feast in North America for almost twice as long as the United States has existed!<\/p>\n

Since then the celebration has grown by leaps and bounds and St. Patrick\u2019s Day is one of the most observed religious feasts in the United States. Officially for the Roman Catholics it is only a Commemoration, but in reality it is celebrated with much more popular participation than, for example, the Solemnity of the Annunciation. We can see how widely celebrated it is every seventh year when it falls on a Lenten Friday.\u00a0 In 2017 Rocco Palmo calculated on his Whispers in the Loggia blog that \u201c120-plus US dioceses \u2013 fully two-thirds of the nation’s Latin-church sees<\/a>\u201d had granted the traditional \u201cCorned Beef Indult.\u201d<\/p>\n

My proposal is very simple. Seeing that many millions of Roman Catholics in the United States (along with millions of their non-Catholic neighbors) celebrate this religious observance, surely it is in the Church\u2019s best interest to encourage it. Pope Francis reminded us in Amoris L\u00e6titia<\/a><\/em> about how the Church needs to be as insightful as businesspeople in appropriating our religious heritage:<\/p>\n

Nor should we underestimate the pastoral value of traditional religious practices. To give just one example: I think of Saint Valentine\u2019s Day; in some countries, commercial interests are quicker to see the potential of this celebration than are we in the Church.<\/p>\n

Amoris L\u00e6titia<\/span><\/i> 208.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ultimately, I am not proposing this simply out of national pride or for a particular cultural heritage. While the start of this post was somewhat tongue in check, I make this proposal in all seriousness. The Catholic Church in the United States has had her difficulties over the last few years and I think a fuller celebration of this feast can help the U.S. Church find herself. St. Patrick was a Christian who lived through very difficult times and inaugurated an evangelization of a people outside the Roman Empire. It is true that for many it is a feast that has more to do with green beer than anything Catholic. But Patrick is not a myth, we have his Confessio<\/a><\/em> or spiritual autobiography and it is still possible for Christians today to encounter the man behind the legends. In a time when many people are enslaved to fears and darknesses of various kinds a renewed devotion to this great saint can help people rediscover the Christian message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this post I am making a very simple proposal, that the USCCB upgrade the celebration of St. Patrick\u2019s Day to the status of Solemnity. 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Neil Xavier O'Donoghue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_09_NeiL_Portrait-96x96.jpeg?crop=1","url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_09_NeiL_Portrait-96x96.jpeg?crop=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_09_NeiL_Portrait-96x96.jpeg?crop=1","caption":"Fr. Neil Xavier O'Donoghue"},"description":"Neil Xavier O\u2019Donoghue is originally from Cork, Ireland. He is a presbyter of the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ who has ministered in parishes on both sides of the Atlantic. He has spent many years as an academic mentor to seminarians. Neil currently serves as Programme Director for Liturgical Programmes at the Pontifical University and as Acting Director of the National Centre for Liturgy. Since 2020 he has also served as the Executive Secretary for Liturgy to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. He has studied at Seton Hall University (BA, MDiv), the University of Notre Dame (MA), and St Vladimir\u2019s Orthodox Theological Seminary (MTh). He holds a Doctorate in Theology (Ph.D.) from St Patrick\u2019s College, Maynooth and is in the process of completing a second doctorate (D.D) in the Pontifical Facultad de Teolog\u00eda Redemptoris Mater in Callao, Peru. Neil has published a translation of the Confessio of St. Patrick: St. Patrick: His Confession and Other Works (Totowa, NJ, 2009), as well editing the third edition of Fredrick Edward Warren\u2019s The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Piscataway, NJ, 2010). In 2011 the University of Notre Dame Press published The Eucharist in Pre-Norman Ireland an adaptation of his doctoral thesis and in 2017 the Alcuin Club published his Liturgical Orientation: The Position of the President at the Eucharist. His articles have appeared in The Irish Theological Quarterly, New Blackfriars, The Furrow and Antiphon. He writes a monthly article on some aspect of the theology of Pope Francis in the Messenger of St. Anthony and blogs regularly at PrayTell.","url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/author\/nxodonoghue\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Green-White-House.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51050,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51049\/revisions\/51050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}