Repost: Catholic Dances: Their Quiet Toleration and Their Vaunted Publication

[195] "Catholic Dances,"

Their Quiet Toleration and their [sic] Vaunted Publication.

To the Editor of The Ecclesiastical Review:

When a brother custodian of "Religion's sacred fires" guards his trust according to his own conscience, even though his methods differ from mine, I may have no right to find fault. But if the smoke of those "fires" blows in my direction, to the detriment of my discipline and the confusion of my flock, surely my giving some account of the faith that is in me, cannot be construed into any assumption on my part of superior wisdom or piety, or as meddlesome impertinence.

Now, I wonder how Catholic papers can consistently and conscientiously make a practice of publishing emblazoned accounts of dances and balls given by Catholic societies and under Catholic auspices. Catholic papers, persistently and rightly, I think, insist on the importance of the apostolate of the Catholic press. While the readers of Catholic papers may not accept as doctrine every salutary statement they see in a Catholic paper, most of them will, probably, accept as "gospel truth," from which there is no appeal, any declaration or suggestion favoring greater amplitude in a matter of coveted liberties.

Some time ago one of my Reverend neighbors was reported as having declared that his parishioners might dance all they wished. Knowing by experience that this man weighs the moral bearing of his words, I felt entirely safe in absolutely denying the report as it stood, and I soon found that he had said nothing of the kind. Such a declaration from a pastor would, it seems to be, unnecessarily [196] encourage a practice which, given the reins, soon runs to the devil, and would considerably embarrass parents who conscientiously keep their sons and daughters away from such places of amusement.

But, if such a declaration from a pastor were imprudent, is not the publication of such amusements in a Catholic paper likewise imprudent? Let a pastor see fit publicly to denounce dancing in his parish, while his hearers read reports in Catholic papers of balls and dances under Catholic auspices, and they will probably conclude that their pastor is rather old-fashioned or fanatical, too young or too old to know better.

Of course there is no dearth of authority, sacred and profane, ancient as well as modern, in support of the pastor's position. Several councils of the Church have anathematized dances, and the Council of Laodicea forbade them even at weddings. The Council of Trent forbids clerics under pain of mortal sin to be even present at any. The good and learned St. Charles Borromeo called dances "a circle of which the devil is at the centre [sic] and his slaves the circumference." St. John Chrysostom denounced them as "a school for impure passions." Many more similar texts might be adduced. Nor are these at variance with Holy Scripture, which says anent this subject, among other uncomplimentary things: "Use not much the company of her that is a dancer, lest thou perish."—Ecclus. 11: 4.

Should it be suspected that the saints are not competent judges in a matter of this kind, profane and heathen authors may be found galore, to testify to the same effect. Sallust, for instance, himself a dancer, and anything but a saint, declared of a certain Roman lady, that "she danced too well for an honest woman." Even applied in our day these words are not without some truth, at least.

Certainly, there is no disputing the theory that dancing under favorable circumstances may be tolerated, and that even waltzing may be done decently. Yet, may we not say, in the words of Dr. Cook, author of Satan in Society, that waltzes at their best are, to put it mildly, "subversive of that modest reserve and shyness, which in all ages has proved the true aegis of virtue"? Whence, one might ask, has Terpsichore the right under the palliating [197] title of "fashionable grip," to sanction liberties and poses that would be accounted rude indecencies, to say the least, under any other auspices?

Of course so long as theory says that some dances may be innocent, on goes the dance—the St. Vitus' dance, the Tam O'Shanter dance, and the innocent dance. But it is one thing quietly and restrictedly to tolerate dancing, and quite another thing to herald and trumpet such toleration to a public only too apt and eager to accept the liberty and ignore the restriction.

The above are only cursory jottings that may, it is hoped, have a tendency to dampen the ardor of such as profess an unbounded confidence in the entire innocence of the Terpsichorean "flow of soul." Those wanting still more dampening on the safe side of the subject, will probably find themselves well repaid by a perusal of the excellent little pamphlet, by T. A. Faulkner, quondam champion dancing master of the Pacific coast, entitled, From the Ball-room to Hell, which is not only thorough and scientific, but also up-to-date, and will remain so as long as the dancers continue invested in frail human nature.

C. P. B.

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Source: C. P. B., "Catholic Dances," American Ecclesiastical Review 27 (August 1902): 195–197.