Should Catholics celebrate Mardi Gras?

[elsi]

My parish council is considering opening the Lenten season with a Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras feast. I’ve always believed this event to be a pagan mockery of Christians moral beliefs and that this was one of the highlights of this festival. For a Catholic parish to have an event that even uses the name Mardi Gras seems to me to be hypocritical and could cause scandal. Shouldn’t the gathering of parishioners on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday be a opportune time to offer suggestions for spiritual growth before we enter this special time of self-denial and prayer?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras celebrations are indicative of Catholic culture, which recognizes that there is a time to feast as well as a time to fast. (And usually the time to feast is right before the time to fast.) Perhaps Hilaire Belloc captured this spirit best:

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine
There’s music and laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

This isn’t to say that there haven’t been Catholics who have used this time of partying (which runs from Epiphany to Fat Tuesday) to engage in sinful excess, but that doesn’t make the partying itself wrong or sinful.

Recommended reading:

Is Catholicism Pagan?