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[45] The subject of "Round Dances" presents itself periodically to the pastor of souls as one of the public evils against which it is his duty to devise efficient measures. [46] There is not uncommon impression that the church-laws forbid round [italics original] dances but allow others, as though the morality of the act were to be determined by its particular form. No doubt the diversion usually called by the name of "round dance" has its dangers, but it cannot be said that these are limited to one particular form of dancing, an exercise which to many presents to suggestion of sin whatever.
An act which is essentially an occasion of sin is always forbidden, because it is the first step in the commission of sin. There need be no law against such acts. When the Church legislates prohibiting certain practices, it is usually because of the danger, more or less direct, to which such practices lead, although in themselves they may be quite indifferent. Where a law is exclusive and permits no discretion of interpretation it is binding, independently of the reason which gave rise to the law and which makes it applicable only in certain cases. Thus, Catholics are forbidden to join any secret societies, although there are undoubtedly many secret societies whose aims and methods are without reproach; but since they are secret it is difficult to determine the particular character of any one, and hence, to avoid all danger, Catholics are warned by positive law against a league which may at any time become a menace to their faith and a hindrance to their liberty of conscience. The same may be said of our attitude towards the public schools. There are many individual schools to which a Catholic child might go without any danger to its religious education; yet if we were to admit the principle of public schools being sufficient for the education of our children, we would many times see ourselves forced to accept for our young the teaching of opinions opposed to us but against which we have no redress because our numbers are in the minority. Hence, the law of Bishops forbidding the children of Catholics to frequent the public schools where there are good parochial schools, is perfectly reasonable and binding, even if the Catholic school did not offer the same temporal or intellectual advantages as the other, so long as there is danger to the faith or moral life of the child frequenting the common school.
[47] As to the subject of dances, the late Plenary Council of Baltimore prohibits as an abuse charity balls (convivia cum choreis ad opera pia promovenda).[1] It does not, to our knowledge, forbid "round dances" as particularly objectionable, but indicates that the social amusement of balls, of which as a rule, the round dance is a prominent feature, is a dangerous diversion which the Church does not wish to have employed as a means of procuring funds for the maintenance of her pious work.
On this ground the pastor has in his parish the right and duty to prevent such diversion when it is introduced by members of his flock as part of a programme [sic] in aid of the Church or any work connected with the same, such as would come under the name of opera pia [i.e. pious works].
But may he interdict round dances or any other kind of dances on the general plea of immorality?
Or, may he refuse absolution to a penitent who practices round dances or who gives parties of which these dances form a special feature?
To give a direct answer to these questions we would say: No.
But in saying "no," all has not been said. There are dances which are in their very nature immoral. These are unquestionably sins. There are dances which are mere expressions of joy and which, though the possible occasion of sin, may be performed quite innocently, as any other merry exercise of body. There is no reason, on the part of the priest, for speaking of either in public. Those who indulge in the former know that it is wrong; those who practice the latter may be warned of the danger, if danger there be in their particular case, in the confessional.
In exceptional instances a pastor may be justified in branding in detail the corrupting usages of his locality, but as a rule it does more harm than good to dilate on a subject the foul excesses of which are known to few and of which a priest is supposed to know only what he has never seen.
As to the confessional, the same duty of correcting and [48] punishing the errant member of the flock, devolves upon the confessor as in other cases of sin or proximate occasion thereto. He justly and wisely refuses absolution to a person who commits sin by dancing, and yet is unwilling to give up the practice which involves danger to his or her eternal salvation.
But we have so far spoken of publicly interdicting the practice on the ground of its being immoral and of refusing absolution to those who take part in the diversion of round dances.
If the custom of dances cannot be called indiscriminately immoral, it may as a rule be called dangerous. And on this ground we may always warn our people, especially the younger portion, against it.
For the individual we can say but little. To some their inborn vivacity supplies in the dance sufficient excitement to drown every other feeling and make the dance a healthy exercise, never approaching to baser passion. We speak, of course, of dances in which both sexes join. With others their national habits supply them with similar motives from which a vicious tendency is altogether absent, despite apparent familiarity. Much the same may be said of those social diversions in higher society which are entirely open and participated in by men and women who are above reproach. The objects which commonly excite the passions are not the same with persons who live under the restraints imposed by refined society as with the vulgar, whose manner more quickly oversteps the barrier of propriety.
Nevertheless it may be safely asserted that with us in the United States the practice of dancing is full of danger, and a pastor cannot sufficiently warn his people, especially the young, against the habit or the occasions which may invite it. In this connection we will be permitted to quote at length from the pastoral instruction of a Bishop whose long and varied experience on the mission in this country had taught him the danger of a practice which he used all his zeal to abolish from his fold. He says:
"In relation to balls and dances, we recommend watchfulness. The Holy Ghost warns against associating with those who frequent such. "Use not the company of her that is a dancer, lest thou [49] perish" (Ecclesiastic, ix, 4). St. Basil commenting on this subject says: "Young women who love to dance will lose the fear of God and set aside the torments of hell." ... "The dance," says St. Charles Borromeo, "is a skillful invention for corrupting morals; it is the source of evil thoughts, impure expressions, of adultery, of the most shameful acts of impurity, quarrels and murders; it turns many persons away from their religious duties, from prayer, devout reading, and makes them heedless of the instructions which they stand so much in need of." (Act. Eccl. Mediol.) It is objected by some that St. Francis of Sales tolerated and even favored balls and dancing on certain occasions. To this we answer, that St. Francis of Sales, like all other saints and divines, could only then tolerate and favor balls and dancing when such were the lesser of two evils, both of which could not well be avoided at the same time; or at least, when they were devoid of sinful surroundings. Now, under these circumstances we would allow them as well as St. Francis of Sales. But with the Saint we hold that they are seldom free from sinful circumstances, that they are extremely dangerous, and therefore not to be encouraged, yes, to be condemned. Listen to the words of St. Francis of Sales to which also we subscribe: "Although balls and dancing be recreations which of their own nature are indifferent, yet, on account of the manner in which they are generally conducted they preponderate very much on the side of evil, and are consequently extremely dangerous." Again speaking of balls and dances he says: "O Philothea, these idle recreations are ordinarily very dangerous; they extinguish the spirit of devotion and leave the soul in a languishing condition; they cool off the fervor of charity and excite a thousand evil affections in the soul." Compared with good works, he calls balls and dances "criminal fooleries." (Introduction to a Devout Life, P. iii, c. 33.)
In this we have been confirmed by facts, for we find that in the parts of our diocese where balls and dances are of frequent occurrence, whilst ignorance, vulgarity, spiritual sloth, religious indifference, infidelity, and other, to the eyes of the world, perhaps more degrading evils are on the increase, faith and morals are on the decline; Sundays and holidays are profaned, the churches forsaken, the religious education of the youth, the reception of the sacraments [sic] and prayer almost entirely neglected; Christianity is despised, its ministers are disrespected and their admonitions unheeded, so that, on account of the deplorable condition to which the people of these [50] missions have been reduced, we find it very difficult to induce worthy clergymen to remain amongst them for any length of time.
Nowhere are mixed marriages, and marriages performed by squires, and marriages invalidly contracted, more frequent than in such communities.
Hence we call upon you, pastors of souls, to bring your influence to bear against these and all other amusements which you know to be a cause of scandal and the occasions of ruin to the souls entrusted to your care. And lest these dances and balls, which on account of the circumstances almost invariably connected with them, seldom escape being the proximate occasion of scandal and sin, should appear to receive the sanction of the Church and the approval of her authorities by allowing them to appear on holy ground, we must, to be consistent, forbid, and do forbid balls and dances to be gotten up in our diocese by, or in the name of, or for the benefit of Catholic churches, schools, or school-houses, religious communities, confraternities, and societies. Further, we forbid the clergy of our diocese, under pain of suspension, to accept of the moneys, or any part of the moneys, made at or by the occasion of such balls and dances, either for themselves or for any religious, eleemosynary, educational, or other purposes whatsoever. For we firmly believe that moneys raised by such means will draw after them, not God's blessings, but His malediction. (Pastoral Instruction of the Bishop of Alton, April 12, 1875.)There is sound theology in this. There is no precept forbidding dances, or round dances in particular. The Fathers of the Council make, it is true, mention of these dances, and point out what a danger there lurks in the practice; but what they censure expressly is "choreas immodestas," [i.e. immodest dances] which are, of course, to be condemned, as all other sinful customs. Moralists in general inveigh against "masked balls," because they offer greater danger to innocence; but the rule which they lay down for correcting the evils resulting from the practice of dancing is the one we have proposed above, or, in the words of P. Sabetti [N.B.: a noted and sound Jesuit moral theologian of the late 19th and early 20th centuries]: Generatim loquendo non expedit publice in praedicatione choreas aliquas nominatim reprehendere, quia concionator nihil proficeret, imo forte aliquos ad eas alliceret. Expedit potius indirecte agere in choreas, et directe in peccata quae ex iis committi solent.[2]
[51] To some persons the practice of dancing would always be an occasion of sin, and their duty is plainly to accept the injunction of their confessors to avoid such amusement altogether. It is, perhaps, one of the most difficult things for a young girl to renounce this habit, once it has been cultivated. Like the disease called tarantismus [i.e. tarantism], it takes possession of persons, especially girls, and makes them sacrifice health and every other consideration to the indulgence of a pleasure which becomes a sort of nervous affection, roused into abnormal action by the mere sound of music or rythmic [sic] motion.
The mediaeval [sic] reformers of morals invented a manner of counteracting the feverish tendency fostered by the troubadours, who, returning from the East, brought with them the Oriental frivolities. Pictures and spectacles in which Death led the dance toward the grave were exhibited and explained to the people. From the thirteenth to the eighteenth century the Dance of Death, or the Dance of the Dead, as it was sometimes called, played an important part in religious art, and later in letters. It had its effect and gave a serious turn to the reckless tide that followed upon the introduction of a new civilization after the crusades. Clergy and people were to be found portrayed in the long procession of those whom the grim skeleton of Death was moving forward to invite to the hideous dance, and none could escape the dread fascination of those hollow eyes, beckoning one after another to waltz toward the brink of the grave. The constant though disguised warning might be repeated at all times, with similar good effect, by serious words about the serious truths of life.
P. Arminio.
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Footnotes:
1. Conc. Pl. III, n. 290.
2. Theol. Mor. Tr. V, C. iii, 191, 5.
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Source: P. Arminio [Herman Joseph Heuser], "The Morality of Round Dances," American Ecclesiastical Review 8 (January 1893): 45–51. https://books.google.com/books?id=sufNAAAAMAAJ.
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