During the Holy Season of Lent, Catholics are obliged to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all the Fridays of this penitential season. This year St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday and I am mindful that for many in our diocese this is the occasion for festive celebrations. Therefore, I am granting a general dispensation from this Lenten discipline for that Friday, March 17. I would encourage those who will forego the practice to prayerfully consider some substitution of equal sacrifice, including but not limited to abstaining from meat on another day~ Bishop William Byrne