Holy Week is the most solemn week of the liturgical year, and Good Friday is the most solemn day of that week, part of the three most sacred days of the year. The mystery of our salvation runs so deep that it takes these three days (known in many Christian circles as the Triduum) to fully express its significance. As Fr. Richard John Neuhaus put it, “In the Christian view of things, all reality turns around the ‘paschal mystery’ of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” And as the one priest said in that AP article you ran, “Nobody is saying baseball isn’t big, but Good Friday is really big,” Vilkauskas told The Detroit News. “It’s 2,000 years old.”

And while it would be a very enriching experience to celebrate the Triduum in Jerusalem at the appointed hour, I think it’s more important to show God the respect due in the very time and place you find yourself, whether it’s Eastern Standard Time, or Far East Time. But whatever time that is, your attitude toward the unfolding last hours of the day Dante described as “the love that moves the sun and all the other stars” proclaims more loudly what is really important in your life, especially when those hours coincide with a mere sporting event.

Frankly, the Tigers are alienating a segment of their fanbase and it’ll cost them at the ticket booth. Plain and simple.