Church lifts Friday meat ban for St. Patrick's Day

Mick McHugh can go ahead and cook up some 200 pounds of corned beef today at his Pioneer Square restaurant, FX McRory's.

He had been a wee bit worried that St. Patrick's Day falls this year on a Friday during Lent, when Catholics are to abstain from eating meat.

But Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett, joining other bishops across the country, has granted a special dispensation from the practice, so that Catholics can honor the traditions of eating corned beef — cured or brined beef — and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day.

"Oh hallelujah!" exclaimed McHugh when he heard about the dispensation. "We'll save the salmon for next Friday."

In 2000, the last time St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday during Lent, Brunett also suspended the no-meat rule. About a third of the country's 197 dioceses have done likewise, according to the Washington Post.

The Rev. Thomas Murphy, an associate professor of history at Seattle University, said dispensations are typically granted in dioceses with a substantial Irish population.

The Seattle Archdiocese does not know how many of its members are Irish Catholics, but says they have played an important role in local history. The archbishop wants to be "respectful toward the devotions of a specific cultural community, and certainly devotion to St. Patrick by Irish Catholics is well known," said Greg Magnoni, Seattle Archdiocese spokesman.

The practice of abstaining from meat started during the Middle Ages, Murphy said, and likely stems from the idea of disciplining the body as a form of penance. Catholics were supposed to abstain from meat every Friday of the year until 1966, when the Vatican changed it to every Friday during Lent.

The idea is to make a small sacrifice in remembrance of Christ's large sacrifice, to be mindful of those who have less, to be thankful for one's blessings and to give more to the less fortunate.

While Brunett's intent is so people can enjoy corned beef on St. Patrick's Day, his dispensation applies to all Catholics in the archdiocese, not just Irish Catholics, and to all kinds of meat, not just corned beef. "The archbishop doesn't have the ability to be quite that proscriptive," Magnoni said.

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com