By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-11-21 18:01:24 | Updated at 2024-11-21 22:53:27
4 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Cardinal Wilton Gregory issued a dispensation to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., from attending Mass on the transferred Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
The Catholic Standard reports that the Solemnity, a Holy Day of Obligation, was transferred from December 8 to December 9, since December 8 is the Second Sunday of Advent.
“The Church moves a solemnity that falls on the Sundays in Advent out of deference for our preparation to welcome the Lord on Christmas,” Cardinal Gregory explained in the archdiocesan decree. “So the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is transferred to Monday, Dec. 9.”
The decree added, “There has been some confusion this year about the observance of this Holy Day and the obligation to attend Mass. But guidance from the Vatican was only recently shared and many parish calendars were already set for the year.”
The Cardinal still urged people to attend Mass and stated that those who could not attend should “engage in other acts of prayer, charity, and Christian witness, all in keeping with the preeminent example of our country’s Patron, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is the Immaculate Conception.”
CatholicVote previously reported that the Holy See’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts Prefect, Archbishop Filippo Iannone, wrote a September 4 letter to Bishop Thomas Paprocki stating that the transferred feast is still a Holy Day of Obligation:
“Canon 1245, §1, establishes the feasts that must be observed as days of obligation. The Canon does not provide exceptions,” Archbishop Iannone wrote.
He stated that these holy days of obligation — including the Immaculate Conception — must always be observed, even if the feast is transferred because it falls on a Sunday.
”Therefore, in that year, the feast must be observed as a day of obligation on the day to which it is transferred.”
While Bishop Paprocki’s Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, and others are maintaining the feast as a Holy Day of Obligation, some dioceses, including those of Chicago and Peoria, Illinois, have issued dispensations.
