At the risk of irking some, perhaps many, who share with me an Irish heritage, but in the hope of affirming a treasure of the Catholic faith so many of us find to be an intrinsic part of that same Irish heritage, allow me a word on March Madness.

No, it’s not collegiate basketball I’m worried about. Rather it is the inability of the organizers of the Grand March, the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade, to cherish their Irishness and Catholicity together.

Indeed the early Easter date has caused all sorts of calendar madness in March this year. Not only has the Feast of St. Patrick been transferred to Friday, March 14 (even in Ireland the Holy Day is so transferred!), but even the Solemnity of St. Joseph has been likewise moved to Saturday, March 15.

Why? Holy Week along with Easter Week embrace in our most Catholic way the solemn annual celebration of the most central events of our Christian faith: the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. Nothing should overshadow in any way the religious/liturgical celebrations of those days for it is precisely with those saving events that the life of the Church was engendered and is renewed.

What a bold testimony to the Catholic treasure of sacramental life through which the Savior continues to “work” salvation would it have been if the parade organizers had decided to transfer the parade (and so maintain their position that it is a religious procession) in accord with the Church! Such a change might have aroused curiosity and prompted questions about Catholic identity, an inquisitive curiosity that might have led to a deeper appreciation of Catholic sacramental and liturgical life.

No doubt the parade organizers must have faced obstacles in obtaining the usual parade permits or objections from those with commercial interests in the parade. Nevertheless, Irish-Americans have faced and overcome greater challenges in the past and should not have yielded now, especially when many associate Irishness with drunkenness and others just want a “green” excuse to help dumb-down Easter into a spring festival.