Roundup: Catholics worldwide celebrate Corpus Christi

June 12, 2009

Many Catholics around the world celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ-- more popularly known as Corpus Christi-- as a holy day of obligation on June 11, the Thursday following Trinity Sunday.

At the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884), the bishops of the United States decided not to make Corpus Christi one of the nation’s six holy days of obligation. A 1969 Vatican liturgical document decreed that “in those places where the solemnities of Epiphany, Ascension, and Corpus Christi are not observed as holydays of obligation, they are assigned to a Sunday, which is then considered their proper day in calendar”-- and thus the feast is now celebrated in the United States on the following Sunday.

 

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Further information:

• No rain for Corpus Christi (Trinidad & Tobago Express)
• Catholic Church marks Corpus Christi, a national holiday (Dominican Today)
• Corpus Christi in Barcelona and Seville on 11 June 2009 (Barcelona Reporter)
• Catholics Celebrate Corpus Christi (Javno)
• Thursday is Corpus Christi, state holiday (Polskie Radio)
• Bishop Kenney leads Corpus Christi procession today - not on Sunday, the feast day imposed by the bishops (Holy Smoke)
• General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar (1969)