If you're putting LEDs in parallel, you still need a resistor for each one, i.e. you are making 3 parallel chains of R+LED in series. If you directly connect 3 LEDs in parallel and with one resistor in series with the whole lot, you'll usually find that one LED is taking basically all of the current and the others are pretty dark. Try it in a breadboard!
Once they all have their own resistors, the brightness variation due to Vf variation is usually not worth worrying about. If you're happy to run 8 in parallel at 2mA each off a 7219 and waste most of the power in lots and lots of resistors (so much soldering!), it will work OK.