As far as I am aware the computation is in fact a rather simple “first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox” for the Catholic church, so anybody can just look at the sky and compute the date.
I imagine that once in a while there may be a problem with precision, when two things appear approximately at the same time. Did the full moon happen at the same time as the equinox, or did it actually happen a few minutes sooner, therefore we need to wait for the next one? Did the full moon happen slightly before or slightly after the Sunday midnight?
I have no idea how often this happens in practice, and what precision is used to determine “equinox” and “full moon”. But I guess that’s what the 140-page Latin documentation is for.
In practice it’s pretty unlikely (I actually had a look at it recently when I was looking for years where both the feast of St Joseph and the Annunciation fall during the Holy Week and must be pushed back to after Easter).
As far as I am aware the computation is in fact a rather simple “first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox” for the Catholic church, so anybody can just look at the sky and compute the date.
I imagine that once in a while there may be a problem with precision, when two things appear approximately at the same time. Did the full moon happen at the same time as the equinox, or did it actually happen a few minutes sooner, therefore we need to wait for the next one? Did the full moon happen slightly before or slightly after the Sunday midnight?
I have no idea how often this happens in practice, and what precision is used to determine “equinox” and “full moon”. But I guess that’s what the 140-page Latin documentation is for.
In practice it’s pretty unlikely (I actually had a look at it recently when I was looking for years where both the feast of St Joseph and the Annunciation fall during the Holy Week and must be pushed back to after Easter).