The answer to the question above is usually “no,” but I think I may have found an exception. I have to travel to the Middle East this week, and because the work week is from Saturday to Wednesday, I will probably be working all day on Sunday. The country where I will be is part of the Vicariate Apostoic of Arabia, which apparently has a dispensation to allow Friday Masses to “count” as the Sunday obligation:
• On Fridays (mornings and evenings) and Saturdays (evenings only) the Holy Mass is that of the following Sunday.
Am I reading this correctly? This isn’t the parish I would attend (I’m not going to Kuwait), but it’s the cathedral parish of the vicariate — can I assume that this dispensation extends beyond Kuwait to the other countries in its territory? I’ll probably end up attending Mass on Sunday — there are plenty of Masses throughout the day in the parish I found — but it might be more convenient to attend on Friday.
This seemed like an interesting question, because I had never heard of such a dispensation. Servicemen deployed during wartime can attend Mass at any time during the week and have it fulfill their Sunday obligation, because they are not always able to attend for obvious reasons. These circumstances are quite different.
On the north end of the Outer banks in NC, there’s a weekday evening Mass that counts for the Sunday obligation. The Bishop allowed it because of the Sat – Sat and Sun – Sun beach rentals and the fact that getting to Kitty Hawk from Corolla can take a huge amount of time on the weekends, and there’s no priest available to do the Mass on the north end on Sundays.
Thanks for pointing this out. I was dreading an upcoming trip to Dubai, worried exactly for this reason. Now I have a bit of hope (where is that chancery phone #?).
How’s this?
http://holyspiritchurchoman.org/mass.htm