Catholicism is lived in the details — saying your prayers, showing up for Mass, helping someone in need who’s right in front of you.

It’s also lived in self-denial — either your own or the small penances the Church asks for from time to time.

That’s one reason the St. Patrick’s Day dispensations of Friday, March 17, 2023, fascinated me.

Briefly: St. Patrick’s Day is March 17. It always falls in Lent. Fridays during Lent are almost always don’t-eat-meat days. But many Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by eating meat — specifically, corned beef.

If March 17 is a Friday — as happens every five, six, 11, or 12 years — should bishops suspend the rule and allow people to eat meat?

More than 72% of the bishops who head dioceses in the United States issued dispensations allowing meat on St. Patrick’s Day this year, as the Register found by checking with all 175. It’s the first time anyone (as far as I know) attempted to survey the whole country on the matter.

Supporters said it’s right to make allowances for a cultural practice rooted in extraordinary devotion to a patron saint. Opponents said the Church doesn’t ask that much of Catholics anymore and to water it down further with an exception to the rules is a bad idea.

Both sides had a point, which is one of the things that makes for a good story.

The most interesting idea I heard: If most of the bishops in the country are issuing dispensations, perhaps the bishops should ask Rome to make St. Patrick’s Day a solemnity in the United States, which would remove the need for an end-around the rules by making it a feast day and not a fast day.