Joe, if people want to celebrate St. Patrick on December 25, I don't care. But....
...the Church would not allow us to bury my mother until the Monday after Easter because funerals were not permitted during Holy Week.
However, I long ago gave up trying to figure out why the Vatican makes the rules it does. Much of what it does -- e.g., the recent dust-up over going back to the response "And with your spirit" (Et cum spiritu tuo) to "The Lord be with you" (Dominus vobiscum) instead of "And also with you" (which flows better and makes better sense in modern English) -- I find is akin to washing the outside of the cup.
There is far more than the sex scandals facing the RC church. But as Mick noted, there have been other threads on it and I don't propose to start another.