CHARLESTON—Bishop Robert E. Guglielmone has given Catholics in the Diocese of Charleston a dispensation to eat meat on March 17, St. Patrick’s feast day, which falls on a Friday during Lent this year. The bishop announced the dispensation in a Feb. 8 memo to pastors.
Catholics fast and abstain during Lent to unite in the suffering and death of Christ, and to prepare for His resurrection. In lieu of this, the bishop recommended that anyone who takes advantage of the dispensation to substitute another form of penance, prayer, or almsgiving to the poor in its place at another time during the remainder of the Lenten season.
