St Patrick’s Day moved?

Have you heard about this? Seriously, NOT a joke.

Saint Patrick’s Day 2008 will be on March 15th, not the 17th.

This is not the first time the day has been moved, it happened back in 1940. In 2008, March 17 is the second day of Holy Week, making celebrations an inappropriate affair.

From what I’ve read, the standard practice in such an instance is to reschedule the feast day to the earliest available day after Easter, but that would put Paddy’s day into April – creating a serious headache for cities and towns who plan their St Patrick’s day festivities a year or more in advance. I guess the church’s thinking is that it’s easier to move things up two days than back into the next month.

But there’s good news: Catholic authorities don’t anticipate another conflict with Holy Week until 2160.