This is the sort of headline that shows the news media’s general ignorance about Catholicism: “Young Catholics to get one Sunday off.” The headline is from Australian web site news.com.au and refers to July 20, World Youth Day 2008, in Sydney, Australia.
SYDNEY bishops have asked the city’s parish priests to reschedule Sunday morning mass on July 20 to enable parishioners to attend the World Youth Day papal mass.
So, it’s not getting “Sunday off”, but instead re-arranging the schedule so they can attend a different Mass. I’d like to see that letter, though, because this story doesn’t make sense. Why would the Mass schedule at the parish’s have to be changed? Unless the people who need to be accommodated are the priests, not the parishioners. Because if you want as many of the dioceses’ priests to attend the papal Mass as possible, then you would need to change the schedule. But if your primary concern is parishioners, whether youth or everyone, then it doesn’t matter if the Masses are somewhat empty.
Oh well, doesn’t bear worrying about. Probably more words than need to be written about it at this point. 
