It is not in Canon law, which only mentions grave inconvenience. This is taken by moral theologians to include, among other things, a long journey (the hour rule for what it is worth was a consensus before cars and buses....I am aware of some moralists who think by car to not be a grave inconvenience for an hour unless it is economically)


And I will remind people again, that very rarely is there a real conflict. You have a right to attend Mass and your employer MUST accommodate that reasonably if at all possible without an undue burden to himself. If he refuses, fires you, etc you can sue his arse

The problem isn't that employers fire people for being late or attending Mass, the problem is that employees don't bother to tell their employer WHY they are late or can't show up on Sundays, and so the employer has no idea, and is thus forced to assume that the employee is simply being a goldbricker....

It is not right to just tell the employer NOTHING and then complain 'discrimination' after the fact, when you could have avoided the problem altogether by simply informing your boss of the conflict in advance.

I live in a small town.

My Sunday obligation can be met at

Saturday 5 PM
Saturday 6 PM
Sunday 8 AM
Sunday 9 AM
Sunday 10 AM
Sunday 11 AM
Sunday Noon
Sunday 3 PM

If I was working, I could get a lunch break to make ONE of those masses.

I live in an urban area of 1,000,000 inhabitants. Once a month I have a Mass that I can walk to (less than 1.5 m away) on Sunday at 4:00 pm. Otherwise, I have lots of Masses to choose from but all of them are a 40-minute (on a Sunday) car ride from home. Usually we take public transport to go to Mass, and that takes about 1 hour each way. If one of the children is sick, it is next to impossible to do so that we both get to Mass on a Sunday without serious dysfunction at home.

If we had to depend on public transportation, we would have to save for cab fare or get a ride from friends. There is no city bus here on Sunday (or Saturday evening). DH and DS could walk to Mass near us (I could not).

This is the part that I don't understand. Does potentially mean might be late and might not, depending on how long Mass goes? Couldn't the person just attend Mass, wear a watch, and leave early if necessary?

Maybe we would have better attendance if we did not have so many priests like this.

For about 6 years I worked two part time jobs. One started at 2:30 AM, including Sundays. The other had me working til 6 PM. If I had another job choice I would have taken it. (I had quit an earlier job because I was always ordered to lie to customers.)
It was during this time that I started attending church and the significance of obligatory Sunday mass attendance was not clear. Not sure how I would have handled it.

So what about folks like me? (I know what my priest has told me, but would love to hear the consensus on here.)
I'm a nurse. I work 12 hr shifts--the only option at the hospital. I have to work every other weekend. So I work from 7am-7:30pm both Sat and Sun. How do I get to mass? Vigil is at 5pm, latest mass is at noon. Can't make either. So what do I do?

Your guess is as good as mine, as to what that means.
I can only report what he said.

Sounds like the obligation isn't there. But I'd look into the possibility of an obscure late Mass. Our local Catholic college has a 10:30pm Mass on Sundays, and my parish has a 7pm youth group Mass on Saturdays, which can be attended by someone else. There could be others. You don't have to go to your parish, so knowing that this is a regular thing, I'd probably look into every church within a reasonable distance and see what my options are, keeping safety and my responsibilities to my family in mind. If there was no reasonable weekend option., I'd try to attend weekday Mass on Monday and/or take some of my break time on Sunday to pray in the hospital chapel.

If there is no Mass you can possibly make, and you simply do not have an option to change your work arrangements to provide a different schedule, then there is no obligation. I would double check for an obscure Mass, as suggested to you, but if there isn't one, then there isn't one. I don't think anyone here would disagree with the statement that you are then not obligated to attend Mass.

However, the problem presented in the original post was the ambivalence of 'tired' and 'potentially late for work'.Simply knowing that someone is 'tired' and 'potentially late for work' is not enough to go on to say that he is definitely excused from the Sunday obligation, and I think it was unwise for the people at the original board to say so without more information to go on. One easy way to fix 'potentially late for work' may be to stand at the back and leave a little early if need be, and then one has at least tried. 'Tired' may mean something so serious that it does indeed excuse from the Mass obligation, but it very often would not be.

I don't think it is either legalistic or unloving to say that one does not have the required information to make a judgment that it is not a sin for the man in the original post to miss Sunday Mass. Now it may be that he does indeed have a good enough reason, but the information does not necessarily suggest that he does.

Ditto this.
Also, just wondering if there is anything you can arrange with your boss or co-workers. I know its touchy to ask for special treatment, but if your laws allow, then why not try. As for the hits we take career wise, wells I guess we have to offer them up.

PS. I think its great that you check on what you are told. Cause although not necessarily in this case, I often hear of people being told wrong things by their parish priest or misunderstanding stuff.

We have Mass in the hospital chapel at noon every day - even Sunday

Not a Catholic hospital. THEY won't hire me--I'm too 'experienced' (read=old) and they'd have to pay me too much, so I have to work at the sinner's hospital.