Repost: The Prohibition of Round Dancing

[540] Everyone knows that there is an endless amount of trouble and friction between ecclesiastical authorities and pleasure-loving youth on the subject of round dancing. Pastors fret and fume; a few conscientious young people abstain, but chafe under the restriction, while the great majority continue at every opportunity to dance, all ecclesiastical interdicts and denunciations to the contrary notwithstanding.

In this state of affairs conscience suffers, of course, and not a few remain away from the Sacraments and from the practice of their faith, owing either to the severity of confessors, or the belief that the waltz and practical Catholicity are absolutely incompatible. That this is a fact in some dioceses, west of the Alleghenies, the writer knows from personal observation; that the same conditions prevail generally over the United States, with local variations here and there, I have good reason to believe. The question arises: Are not many of these disagreeable and widespread conflicts between pastors and people unnecessary? Do not these frequent discords between conscience and conduct arise from the fact that the former is false, inasmuch as it is burdened with an erroneous conviction? Let us examine the status of round dancing from a moral and then from a canonical point of view.

It is understood, of course, that dancing, in se [i.e. in itself], is an indifferent act and does not fall under any ethical censure. But the danger accompanying it, the manner in which it is conducted, the attitudes, company, place and times of this amusement may render it culpable. It cannot be said that the attitude of the partners in a waltz, polka, schottische or two-step is necessarily improper, since round dancing may be carried on with a decorum and modesty which are above the reproach of anyone except a prude.

Moralists generally are of this opinion: "Secluso semper casu specialis prohibitionis, malitia harum chorearum non consistit nisi in periculo, quod est essentialiter relativum" (Sabetti). "Choreae istae, licet in genere, non tamen semper [541] et in omni casu seu inter cujuslibet generis personas sunt inhonestae, idque eadem presertim de causa quod non omnes in saltando adhibent amplexus adeo pressos, illamque pectoris et faciei propinquitatem adeo indecoram quae communiter adhiberi solent; possunt enim choreae illae fieri, etsi amplexibus aliqua distantia servetur" (Konings). The German theologian P. Lehmkuhl, living in the home of the waltz, and where dances are almost exclusively round, passes over the whole subject very briefly, and does not undertake to condemn or deprecate round dances as a class.

Even if we concede that the generality of dancers transgress propriety in their manner of waltzing, no sweeping condemnation sub gravi can be leveled against it on this ground. The question then turns upon the degree of culpability of these tactus minus honesti, which as every moralist teaches, are not always a grave peccatum. Let confessors consult their own experience in this regard. How often do cases of grave sins contra sextum come under their notice as involved in or arising from round dancing? The writer has met with but few. Many lesser, indeliberate sins of voluptuousness may indeed be due to the dancing floor, but the commonness of this form of amusement, the whirl and excitement of the ball room, and often the preoccupation of keeping correct step, in the large majority of cases prevent any serious infraction of the precept of chastity.

The main evils that ensue are not from the dancing itself, but probably from its concomitants—late hours, and a lax custom of escorting which happily is becoming less usual. These are dangers and evils which are not associated with round dances alone, but with all dances and occasions where young people meet at late hours without due safeguards and supervision.

Round dancing therefore is not essentially immoral. As commonly practiced it may generally offend purity, but since grave sins do not ordinarily accompany it even in its popular and reprehensible form, it cannot on the score of chastity and in general be illicit sub gravi peccato. So much for its purely moral aspect.

[542] Can it be held that round dancing is culpable in America on account of the existence of an ecclesiastical prohibition?

In the Pastoral letter of the Second Baltimore Council occurs the following: "We consider it to be our duty to warn our people against . . . those fashionable dances, which, as at present carried on, are revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety, and are fraught with the greatest danger to morals." As the language indicates these words convey no precept, but only an admonition. In paragraph 472 of the Decreta of the same Council we read this injunction to those having the care of souls: "Choreas immodestas, quae quotidie magis magisque frequentantur, insectentur et prorsus damnent."

Round dances are not here singled out for condemnation, but all kinds whatsoever that are gravely immodest and very dangerous to morality. The waltz and its modifications, therefore, fall under this censure only when they answer this description. It is plain that the Fathers did not intend to place all round dancing without distinction under a ban, for in that case their language would have been more specific, and, moreover, the manner in which they qualify their disapproval in the words of the Pastoral cited above forbids such an assumption.[1] The Third Plenary Council again touches on balls in connection with church festivals, but makes no allusion to round dancing in particular.

There is then no universal law placing round dances under the ban. The American Church disapproves of them, but disapproval and prohibition are wide apart. Individual bishops in many dioceses have strictly forbidden these dances at festivals in aid of churches or charities, or at entertainments and picnics given by Catholic societies. Yet such a prohibition cannot legitimately be stretched so as to include waltzing in all and any circumstances. For that, a diocesan statute or a definite and public enactment is necessary. In how many dioceses do the statutes forbid these dances? How many bishops have fulminated decrees making them totally [543] unlawful within the limits of their jurisdiction? I venture to say that very few, if any, have been so radical and severe.

So stands the matter from the point of view of positive law. And yet we hear repeated time and again that the "Church forbids round dancing." One would think from the actions and utterances of many who should be better informed that all waltzing, polkaing [sic], schottisching [sic] and galoping [sic] had been forever damned by one sweeping anathema. The Church forbade round dancing? When? Where? How? Through whom? This erroneous impression has long been abroad. This aerial, intangible non licet hovers about the heads of priests and layman, old and young alike. It stirs up pastors and confessors to odious rigor and sometimes unholy wrath. It weighs like an incubus on the consciences of young people who are fond of dancing and find that fashion has made waltzing the regular form of that amusement. This fallacy has been the cause of much unnecessary scandal and countless formal sins of disobedience, which are without any material substratum and therefore altogether avoidable. It is important that consciences should be enlightened, and all know that, outside the injunction of a confessor, or the limited prohibition of a bishop, there is no law against circular dancing. Is it not a thousand times better that the ranks of the waltzers should be joined by the few of our Catholic youth who, out of respect for a supposed prohibition, have hitherto refrained, than that mortal sins of formal disobedience, and scandal, should be allowed to multiply?

Sometimes minds are not so much mistaken as perplexed. It is not impossible to hear waltzing roundly denounced and strictly forbidden in one parish, and see it tolerated or encouraged in another. In one diocese the bishop may be severe on this head; perhaps in a neighboring one Catholic societies and church festivals hold their round dances undisturbed. The situation calls for uniformity and consistency. Especially for the latter. In the face of the manner in which quadrilles are danced at the average church fair, strictures on waltzing become absurdly inconsequent. To hold up [544] hands of orthodox horror at round dancing, and then look serenely on while couples rush together and spin madly about in one another's arms, is something near the acme of inconsistency, which is none the less glaring for being often unconscious.

I am not pleading for the approval of round dances. I think, with the Third Plenary Council, that the sooner all dancing be divorced from Church auspices the better. But let us have clearer and more reasonable views on this question. If waltzing be prohibited as dangerous, then let all indecorous dancing share the same fate in enactment and practice. And as long as the Church or the Ordinary has not condemned round dancing with a clear and certain voice, it is a vexatious and unwarrantable thing to burden and bind consciences anent the matter, outside of individual cases which discover themselves in the Sacrament of Penance.

Observator.

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Footnotes:

1. Conf. Sabetti's Theol. Mor., p. 134.

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Source: "The Prohibition of Round Dancing," American Ecclesiastical Review 17 (November 1897): 540–544.