Fr. Adrian Fortescue on St. Pius X (1910)

You know, we have stuck out for our position all our lives ... unity, authority. etc., Peter the Rock and so on. I have, too, and believe it. I am always preaching that sort of thing, and yet is it now getting to a reductio ad absurdum? Centralisation grows and goes madder every century. Even at Trent they hardly foresaw this kind of thing. Does it really mean that one cannot be a member of the Church of Christ without being, as we are, absolutely at the mercy of an Italian lunatic? ...

We must pull through even this beastliness somehow. After all, it is still the Church of the Fathers that we stand by and spend our lives defending. However bad as things are, nothing else is possible. I think that when I look at Rome, I see powerful arguments against us, but when I look at the Church of England ... I see still more powerful arguments for us. But of course, saving a total collapse, things are as bad as they can be. Give us back the tenth century Johns and Stephens, or a Borgia!

They were less disastrous than this deplorable person...

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Source: Letter to Fr. Herbert Thurston, S.J., Nov. 5, 1910.

Francis P. Donnelly, The Science of Theology and the Art of Sacred Eloquence (1911)

[11] The antithesis of science and art has been so often formulated that it would be idle and wearisome to rehearse the details. The title of this article will in itself clarify some ideas and point the way to practical corollaries. Without entering, then, upon the larger question of the contrasts of art and science, it might be well to single out some difficulties the preacher may be expected to meet with in transmuting the substance of his theological science into the material of his sacred eloquence, in translating a thesis into a sermon, in making Aquinas a Lacordaire or Suarez a Bourdaloue. It would seem paradoxical at first sight to affirm any difficulty whatsoever. Truth is one and the same whether couched in a syllogism or resonant in a period. Falsehood may assume a thousand disguises; but truth has but one expression upon its immobile features, one look in its sleepless eyes; eternally fixed upon eternal foundations, with unswerving gaze—the ideal of sphinxes, moored with shiftless fixedness upon the shifting sands of falsehood.

[12] But the difficulty in question does not come from truth. You have the same proportions of hydrogen and oxygen in the glacier as you have in the river, but in some cases it took geological ages, in all cases it involves the expenditure of immense energy, to strip ice of its accidental rigidity and frigidity and run it molten down the valleys of the world, conforming itself to every varying width and every varying depth of its proper channel. There is no substantial change in the truth, but its accidental form must put off the inflexible austerity of science and assume the flexibility and warmth of eloquence. In the famous statement of St. Augustine, which embodies the world-old tradition of oratory, theology puts a full stop after the first member; eloquence, leaving the commas, goes on to the end of the three clauses. "Ut veritas pateat, ut veritas placeat, ut veritas moveat." [i.e. "That the truth be clear, that it please, that it move."]

ELOQUENCE IS UNTECHNICAL.

The technical term is something that must be left in the lecture-room. Science could scarcely exist without the technical term. Such terms constitute the shorthand of science. One phrase in theology is sometimes an index to volumes, condenses ages of church history, expedites scientific discussion and is the gravestone of a thousand heresies. Pelegianism, transubstantiation, hypostasis, circum-insesssion, and all the terminative's and formaliter's of the theological disputation are absolutely essential to science, very nearly fatal to eloquence. The reason is not, because shallow thinkers or careless students make the technical term a substitute for knowledge and think they have theology because they have mastered its language, as though the mere murmuring of x, y, z, entitled one to a degree in algebra. A terminology is the scaffolding needed to erect the temple of truth. A certain amount of acrobatic skill will enable one to scale its bare boards or tread securely its precarious rafters, but while irresponsible youths are playing hide-and-seek on the scaffolding, the builders, resting on that necessary structure, lay the stones of the temple in solidity.

It is not, therefore, because of its abuse that terminology is unserviceable to eloquence; it is precisely because of its [13] scientific utility. Technical terms constitute a language, and a very difficult language. It is a language which saves valuable time for the teachers. It is comprehensive, precise, severely intellectual, but it is a foreign language to people who listen to sermons and scarcely serviceable for even a congregation of theologians. Its very condensation makes it indigestible within the brief time given to the spoken word, and even the Bread of the Lord must be leavened, though not with the leaven of the Pharisees. Sometimes the very terms of ascetical theology likewise need leavening before being dispensed to the multitude. Mortification and the spiritual life and the interior spirit and supernatural motives, these and many another term that has come to us from the good books we read, are stereotyped formulas of asceticism and may be idle words for many hearers.

The sacred orator must melt down the stereotyped and run his language into new molds for his audience. He must leave the glacial period of science where "froze the genial currents of his soul" and thaw out in the pulpit. Estimate, if you will, the energy of heat required to convert a world of ice into a sea of fire, and you will have some idea of the labor required to change a small quantity of theology into the palpitating flexibility of a sermon. Modern inventions have been able by high-pressure machines to force air bubbles into baking dough and so shorten the leavening process by dispensing with the slower release and permeation of yeasty vapors. The work calls for time and energy. If you shorten the time, you must increase the energy. Sometimes it is only after years of thought and familiarity with the solid truth of theology that it has become light and wholesome for public consumption in the pulpit; sometimes the intense application of special study will force at once technicality and density into freedom and grace; but always either by expenditure of more time or more energy in the mastery of thought, must the prime matter of truth be made to doff the form of science and assume the form of art.

Suppose you should try to bring home to the audience the personality of God. You would have visions from theology of pantheism and agnosticism. You would recall shattered fragments of discussion about hypostasis and the individual. [14] Perhaps half-forgotten heresies would struggle into consciousness with other flotsam and jetsam. All that would be quite unleavened for the audience you have in mind, and you might say to yourself, "I will talk to my good people about going to Mass and confession." But perhaps with longer meditation you would feel that the personality of God might give a meaning to religious life, might comfort a lonely soul, might take prayer out of the region of the clouds, making it, instead of what would be deemed as senseless talking to the air, rather the loving converse with one who knows and loves, whose ear is ever at our lips, as Fr. Farrell puts it somewhere; and moved by these many advantages your thoughts of God's personality would shed its technicalities. Fr. Pardow, who died but recently, was a preacher who had in his life a vivid realization of the personality of God and made many attempts to formulate his knowledge for the pulpit. He often tried to make his hearers realize what he felt. One illustration had some success. "A government," he would quote or say, "is impersonal. 'I cannot shake hands with the United States', was the cry of the soldier. My Colonel is my government for me." But Fr. Pardow's most successful attempt at making his audience realize God's personality was closely allied to one which Christ Himself used for a similar purpose. Not far from where Fr. Pardow lived at Poughkeepsie he saw on one of his walks an incubator whose source of heat was an oil-lamp. His mind was ever alive to spiritual analogies, and one suggested itself at once. The lamp would represent the impersonal idea of God as a force in the universe and would be contrasted with the mother-hen the embodiment of the personal idea. The illustration is crude as here presented, but it was not so in his development of it, and his fine sense of humor was able in a delicate way to make much of the absurdity of an oil-lamp masquerading as a mother-hen. whatever may be the thought of it, it certainly was, with other explanations, effective in securing a realization of God's personality. One good, shrewd Irishman was full of the idea after the sermon, and prayer became for him a new thing. Another person wrote to Fr. Pardow in English which is rude but in enthusiasm which is unmistakable: "Dear Father on Good Friday night Will you please give us the Leture [sic] you gave [15] down at the 16st Collige [sic]. About the Chicken who had a Mother. And the Chicken who had the Incubator for a Mother. Father I am trying to get some of the Boys who do not know what the inside of our church look [sic] like and I know if they was to hear about the Chicken it would set them to think of God in this holy season of Lent." The note is unsigned. 

Assuredly it would seem to be a far cry from the personality of God to an incubator, yet it made the writer of that note think of God and with the zeal of an apostle he wanted the boys to think the same way. Similar but greater enthusiasm was aroused, we may feel sure, by the supreme eloquence of, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?" We feel the Great Theologian and Sacred orator would not have disdained the incubator with its homely oil-lamp. There are few technical terms in the eloquence of the Gospels.

ELOQUENCE IS IMAGINATIVE.

Scientific truth differs from artistic truth in its presentation. The truths of science are general. Science works from the particular and concrete back to the general and abstract. The truths of art are embodied in the concrete. Contrary to science, art begins with the ideal and works toward a concrete presentation. Geometry will reduce a flower-garden to a blueprint; landscape gardening will turn lines into borders and blank spaces into mosaics of flowers. The architect must have his blueprint to keep him from going wrong, but art finds its realization in the cathedral. Science gives an anatomical chart; art produces a statue. Principles, deductions, conclusions, classification, systems, these are processes of science and valuable they all are for art, but all these operations are facing the abstract and general. Art faces the concrete and particular, and after its survey of heaven and earth it is not content until it gives "airy nothings a local habitation and a name." Science is ever climbing up the tree of Porphyry; art is ever climbing down it.

[16] Apply all this now to theology and preaching. Anyone can see the two opposite processes exemplified in such works as Corluy's Spicilegium Dogmaticum, and in most commentators who are looking to the essential truths of Scripture. The sermon on the Mount is reduced to a series of general propositions where everything local, particular, and concrete is set aside to arrive at the essence, to classify the product and codify a system. Take again the sermon on prayer (Luke 11). "Lord, teach us to pray", said one of His disciples. The first part of the sermon advises the recitation of the Our Father; then follows a famous parable, a picture with all its details, local, actual, and contemporary; the perfection of the concrete. In the crucible of science these details are all swept away. "Friend, lend me three loaves," is generalized into "prayer". "If he shall continue knocking," is the artistic expression for the scientific "persevering". So with the rest: the midnight hour, the shut door, the children in bed, the continual knocking, the reluctant rising, the triumph of the visitor, all disappear, and this piece of eloquence becomes a theological conclusion asserting "the efficacy of persevering prayer; for if selfishness and indolence yield to importunity among creatures, how much more is this true of God?" 

Think a moment of all the great truths of our faith which have been embodied in exact terms and defined and made perspicuous by reason and authority; and set them aside by side with the gospel which is sacred eloquence and from which these great truths arose; and you will understand the marked difference between the scientific and artistic form of the same truth. The providence of God and the lilies of the field, the papal supremacy and the keys, the infallibility and the rock and the sheep, unity and the one fold, grace and the wedding garment, charity and the Good Samaritan, humility and the little child, perfect contrition and the prodigal, torments of hell and unquenchable fire without a single drop on a parched tongue—there is no need of prolonging the catalog. The parable, the example, the story, the similitude, the epigram, the brief description, these are rarely employed in the textbooks of science, where clearness of truth is looked for: "ut veritas pateat". These, however, always enshrine the truths of eloquence where the charm of truth is sought for: "ut veritas placeat".

[17] ELOQUENCE IS EMOTIONAL.

Finally, scientific truth is unemotional. Earnestness may galvanize a chapter of Suarez into momentary life, but that life is only galvanic and extrinsic. It comes from flashing eye and thrilling tone and vigorous gesture, but the truth itself is unemotional. Science wants it so. It excludes emotion as distracting and out of place. Imagine a professor of geometry tearfully and exultantly announcing in tremulous tones his Q. E. D. Science does not amplify, does not enforce its truths with emotional vehemence, does not perorate. If you do not understand, it gives another proof, or another exposition. When you catch the fact or principle, the work of science is done. The mind is equated with objective realities; it is vested with the truth. You have a perfect mental fit. It is no part of science to comment on the beauty of the vesture or its goodness. It has already passed on to fit your mind with another truth. Ah, but art does not pass on. In its mental vestures, art dwells upon their beauty and is attracted or repelled by their goodness or evil. The truth of art is transfigured by the imagination into a thing of beauty and is shown to be stained with evil or flowing with goodness, because in eloquence the truth must pass from the mind through the imagination to the heart: "ut veritas pateat, ut veritas placeat, ut veritas moveat".

One glance of the opened eye sees the flash of truth; the gaze must be riveted to behold its beauty; the looks must be fascinated to thrill with truth's emotion. "Veritas stat in indivisibili", our philosophers tell us, but "pulchritudo non stat in indivisibili nec malitia nec bonitas." So the orator amplifies and is diffuse. He deepens the dark shadows of the picture that you may hate it more and more; he emphasizes the light areas that you may like the picture more and more. He will never be content with your merely seeing it. In a sense, therefore, the sacred orator must know theology better than the theologian. He will not be content with a surface knowledge but will feel the pulse of truth and listen to its heart-beat. He will get down below terms to realities. Before his imagination general truths will marshall [sic] the multitudes of their individuals, and disclose the significant individual which will best represent the class. His knowledge [18] of theological truths will widen out into the myriad relations and analogies in history, art, and nature wherein the profoundest theology may be presented and illustrated in the simplest object-lesson familiar to every audience. Part of Chesterton's success consists in his power of bringing his philosophy, as much as he has, down to the lowest common denominator. He sees philosophy in the veriest [sic] trifles of life. I know, too, a chemist who has so mastered his science that I really believe he could give a complete course in chemistry with experiments and illustrations from the stains and paints and what not of his room. So must the preacher have mastered his theology for the pulpit. He must be able to see sermons in everything, discern the great round orb of God's truth reflected in countless shades and tints from all the creatures in God's universe.

His truth will be apostolic, will become all things to all men to save all, will avoid the scientific language which appeals to the expert and the trite language which appeals to no one, will keep its language from degenerating into mere symbols, and so will be ever on the lookout in realms of the imagination for new forms in which to body forth the old thoughts. The truth of the orator must be apostolic; it must win its way by beauty and charm and ensure its progress to its destination, the human heart, by filling itself with emotion, by manifesting its goodness or evil. "Ut veritas pateat, ut veritas placeat, ut veritas moveat".

Francis P. Donnelly, S.J.

St. Andrew-on-Hudson, N. Y.

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Source: Francis P. Donnelly, "The Science of Theology and the Art of Sacred Eloquence," Ecclesiastical Review 45, no. 1 (July 1911): 11–18.

Dances at Parties for Benefit of Churches (1934)

[537] Qu. 1. Sometimes at a garden party held for the benefit of the parish a dance is given by a parish society in the parish hall and the proceeds are donated to the parish. Is this practice in conflict with the prohibition of dances under church auspices?

2. Are only public dances held for that purpose forbidden, or are also dances held in private houses, but promoted in order to obtain funds for the church? Can you indicate the canons of the Code to substantiate your answer?

Resp. In both the decree of 31 March, 1916,[1] and the [538] declaration to this decree, 10 December, 1917,[2] the Sacred Consistorial Congregation forbids priests "to promote and foster" (promoveant et foveant) dances. It is difficult to see how such dances may be held in parish property unless the pastor gives his approval. One must therefore conclude that the practice described above is forbidden. It is true, by questionable casuistry, some priest may cleverly (?) direct the society to proceed "without his knowledge and consent" to hold the dances; and thus pretend that he is not at fault. Actually, however, this ruse deceives no one, not even himself.

2. The two documents referred to above make no distinction as to the place where the proscribed dances for the benefit of a church are to be held. Without distinction they forbid all priests to promote them and even to be present at them, if the dances are arranged for by lay persons.

There is no explicit mention of this prohibition in the Code. At most (if the words "Ad decimarum et primitiarum solutionem" may be taken in a wide sense), it would come under canon 1502, since the condemned practice is anything but a "laudable" custom. Directly, however, this prohibition derives from the above decree of the Consistorial Congregation. Although it antedates the Code, it nevertheless remains in force as a particular rule not contrary to the canons. It is moreover not a mere disciplinary regulation, but rather a condemnation and proscription of a practice that is an abuse.

The decree and the declaration in regard to it were issued only for the United States and Canada. As such they do not oblige other countries.

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Footnotes:

1. Acta. Ap. Sedis, VIII (1916), 147-148; Ecclesiastical Review, LXV (1916), 69-70.

2. Acta. Ap. Sedis, X (1918), 17; Ecclesiastical Review, (1918), 537.

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Source: "Dances at Parties for Benefit of Churches," Ecclesiastical Review 90, no. 5 (May 1934): 537–538.

"Dancing Priests" and the Council of Baltimore (1919)

[445] A zealous pastor who frowns upon dancing among Catholics because the practice, much like card-playing and brandy, has a bad name, comments adversely upon the answer given in the August number of the REVIEW under the heading "Priests and Dancing Parties". He holds that dancing parties, even for good objects promoting religion or piety, are an abuse, and that the proceeds of such entertainments is "tainted" money, which a priest may not accept for religious purposes. In support of this view a canon from the Council of Baltimore is cited: "Mandamus quoque ut sacerdotes illum abusum, quo convivia parantur cum choreis [balls] ad opera pia promovenda, omnino tollendum current."

We have in the many instances when discussing the question directed attention to the distinction between dances that are a danger to morals, and dancing as a popular amusement indulged in for recreation. The latter is not illicit, though it has its dangers for the individual. Certain methods and functions connected with balls violate decency and modesty and are therefore forbidden by the moral law. In some cases dancing, like wine and card-playing, becomes a direct occasion of sin, against which Christians are to be warned. On the principal that "Qui amat periculum in illo peribit," the Church as the guardian of morals formulates definite precautions against the peril of sin, and this is the object of the Council of Baltimore when it forbids convivia cum choreis. [446] What the Bishops of the Plenary Council forbid is not dancing, but a certain class of dancing parties protracted into the night after banqueting, when the bodies and the imaginations of the participants are heated to the danger point of passion. "Convivia cum choreis", when they constitute an abuse, are very different things from dancing as a mere amusement. Glycerine has a soothing and healing virtue, though in connexion [sic] with certain chemicals it becomes an explosive calculated to destroy health and life. So here. In medio virtus.

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Source: "'Dancing Parties' and the Council of Baltimore," Ecclesiastical Review 61, no. 4 (Oct. 1919): 445–446.

Priests and Dancing Parties (1919)

 [200] Qu. Will you kindly answer the following questions:

1. Does the prohibition regarding dances extend to institutions under the supervision of religious, such as orphanages, hospitals, etc., when these institutions arrange entertainments, bazaars, lawn parties, etc., for the benefit of their upkeep?

[201] 2. May the different committees or societies or sodalities which have booths for these institutions or for a church benefit at such entertainment, permit dances in connexion [sic] with the event in order to swell the proceeds?

3. May a pastor receive for church uses, funds which he knows to be the result of dances under the auspices of said societies, especially when he knows of the arrangement in advance, though he is not directly connected with such amusements?

Resp. Dancing in itself is not an illicit amusement, though it has its dangers for the individual. Certain dances, or methods connected with them, which plainly violate decency and modesty, are forbidden by the moral law, and whatever tends to these practices is to be prevented like all other moral wrong in the flock, by the prudent foresight of the pastor charged with the care of souls.

Since it is not always possible for the priest personally to determine the actual line at which decorum is overstepped, or to anticipate possible acts calculated to scandalize sensitive consciences, his presence at such amusements may easily start criticism and scandal without his being responsible for or even capable of censuring it in the individual. For this reason the ecclesiastical authorities forbid priests to promote or be present at such diversions. (S. C. Consist., 10 Dec. 1917.) To refuse, however, to permit these dances or to regard the proceeds of dancing parties organized for charitable purposes as "tainted money" which a priest may not accept, would be to pronounce the dancing under the circumstances as immoral, which is not true. Those who, as Catholics, promote the parties are obliged to safeguard their enterprise as far as possible from becoming a source of sin or scandal. And priests as well as other religious instructors are bound to present this obligation to their charges.

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Source: "Priests and Dancing Parties," Ecclesiastical Review 61, no. 2 (Aug. 1919): 200–201.

Dancing at a Concert for Benefit of Church (1918)

 [323] Qu. Would you kindly answer the following question in the next issue of your REVIEW? May I give permission to the Catholics of my parish to give a concert for the benefit of our new church, knowing that the concert includes a dnace?

Resp. As this query comes from a far-off clime we presume that the inquirer has not seen the question of dancing at Church celebrations discussed in the pages of the REVIEW. Briefly, then, for his benefit, and that of others to whom a reminder may not be untimely, the decree of 31 March, 1916, renewing the provisions of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, forbids two things: first, that priests should organize or "get up" ("promovere vel fovere") dances, even when such dances are for the benefit of the Church or for some other pious purpose; second, when such dances are organized by others, the priest is forbidden to be present. To give permission for a concert at which the pastor knows that there will be dancing will or will not fall under the first of these prohibitions according to circumstances. In most cases, we think it would.

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Source: "Dancing at a Concert for Benefit of Church," Ecclesiastical Review 58, no. 3 (March 1918): 323.

Promulgation of New Decrees (1916)

 [192] Qu. Does the new decree in regard to dancing bind pastors as soon as it is made known through the Catholic press, even if the Ordinary has not promulgated it in the diocese?

Resp. Since 1909, to make a Roman law or decree binding in foro externo it is sufficient that it be published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. The publication of a document in that periodical takes the place of the dispatch of an official copy to the bishops, as was the custom before 1909. The presumption is that a decree enacted and promulgated by the Holy See will be put into execution by the Ordinary. If, in exceptional cases, for reasons which he must make known to the Holy See, he suspends the application of a Roman decree, he [193] must expressly notify his diocese. A clergyman therefore who reads a decree in the Acta, or who, through the Catholic press, knows that it is published in the Acta, is bound, without further notification, by the provisions which it enacts.

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Source: "Promulgation of New Decrees," Ecclesiastical Review 55, no. 2 (August 1916): 192–193.

The Decree On Dancing (1916)

 [193] Qu. In the small country parish in which I am stationed, the people have been accustomed to dance at our church picnics. The dances in vogue, however, were the old-fashioned country, or square, dances. Recently, after I had prohibited dancing at the annual picnic, a delegation of young men asked me to give them permission to hold a free dance in the parish hall, for the use of which they would pay a small fee. In the event of not getting permission, they would, they told me, hold the dance in the town hall, some distance from the church. After giving the matter some thought, and for the reason that it is better to have the dance under some kind of parochial control, I decided to let them have the hall. Now I would like to have your answer to the following questions:

1. Does the phrase "certain dances" apply to all dances whatsoever, or only to some?

2. Is a pastor permitted to visit the hall during the dancing, to see that it is orderly and that the dances are conformable to Christian modesty?

3. Is a pastor justified in permitting the dances in the parish hall in order to keep a certain control over them, it being understood that there is no thought of thereby raising funds for religious purposes?

Resp. 1. The answer to the first query is that all kinds of dances, no matter how old-fashioned or "harmless", are meant. The phrase "certain dances" occurs in the title of the decree, "Decretum circa quasdam choreas"; but it is evident from the use of the word "choreas" in the text of the decree that we must translate: "Decree concerning certain dancing-parties". The decree makes no distinction between new dances and old, between square dances and round; it does, however, distinguish between dancing-parties that are given under church auspices and those organized by laymen. The former kind are forbidden, no matter the program of dances may be.

2. In regard to the second question, we think that the text of the decree clearly prohibits the pastor's presence at dancing[194]-parties organized by lay people. The motive, namely, "to see that the party is orderly, etc.", does not justify his presence. Of course, if grave disorder should occur in a dance-hall and the pastor were summoned thither in the performance of his duty, the present decree need not deter him from entering the hall.

3. There may be room for discussion of the third question. The decree positively forbids the promotion and encouragement of such entertainments on the part of members of the clergy, religious or diocesan: "quonimus memoratas choreas promoveant et foveant"; at the same time, when it comes to the case of such entertainments being organized by lay people, the decree does not say that the pastor should interpose his authority, and forbid them, but enacts that he should not be present. Does the renting of the parish hall amount to a mere tolerance or is it promoting and encouraging? In a thoroughly Catholic community, where there is no danger of the priest's attitude being misunderstood, especially if the entertainment be not associated with a church picnic, excursion, or any other church affair organized by the priest, it seems that, since there is no authoritative interpretation of the decree on this point, the priest may rent the church hall for an entertainment organized by lay people, even when he knows that dancing is part of the program.

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Source: "The Decree on Dancing," Ecclesiastical Review 55, no. 2 (August 1916): 193–194.

What is Considered Indecent Dress of Women by the Supreme Authority of the Church? (1930)

[1328] Question: I there any authoritative statement of the Holy  See as to what constitutes indecent dress of women? It is evident that effective action against unchristian fashions for women can be had only if one can point out with precision things that are judged indecent by the Church. —VERITAS

Answer: Yes, there is such an authoritative statement. Recently one of our correspondents has kindly sent us a copy of a leaflet published by the Central Bureau of the Catholic Central Verein, with the Imprimatur of the Most Rev. John J. Glennon, Archbishop of St. Louis. In this leaflet there are translated from the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, January 12, 1930 (cfr. THE HOMILETIC AND PASTORAL REVIEW, April, 1930, pp. 757-759), those points which the Holy See wants the bishops to attend to in an effort to stop the spread of indecent fashions for women. So earnest is the Holy See about this matter that it requires the bishops to state in their quinquennial report on the state of their dioceses what they have done to counteract this evil. Furthermore, the above-mentioned leaflet draws attention to the fact that the aforesaid Instruction incorporates by reference a letter of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, August 23, 1928, to the religious communities of women in the City of Rome conducting girls' schools. In that letter specific directions are given as to what the Holy See considers unbecoming dress for Catholic women and girls. We quote from the leaflet: "In order that uniformity of understanding prevail in all institutions of religious women regarding the cases in which the aforecited [sic] prescriptions of the Congregation of Religious apply, we recall that a dress cannot be called decent which is cut deeper than two fingers' breadth under the pit of the throat, which does not cover the arms at least to the elbows, and scarcely reaches a bit beyond the knees. Furthermore, dresses of transparent material are improper, as also flesh-colored stockings, which suggest the legs being bare."

The reader can judge for himself how many of the Catholic ladies, young and old, contradict the teaching of the Supreme Authority of the Church in their manner of dressing, not only in the streets, but even in our churches and when approaching Holy [1329] Communion. The spirit of liberty in its exaggerated form, and the lack of delicacy of Christian modesty lost through contact with life in the midst of an overwhelmingly large neo-pagan population that is mostly Christian in name only, have made even ordinarily good Catholic women and young ladies unconscious of the indecency of modern dress and its offense against public Christian morality. It will require a country-wide concerted effort of the Catholic Church in the United States to bring back to them the Christian sense of modesty, not by impatient scolding and severe condemnation and penalties, but by persistent and uniform teaching of the high sense of morality evidenced in the lives of the Saints and the vast majority of our Catholic ancestors.

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Source: Stanislaus Woywod, OFM, LLB, "What is Considered Indecent Dress of Women by the Supreme Authority of the Church?" The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 30, no. 12 (Sept. 1930): 1328–1329.

 https://archive.org/details/sim_homiletic-pastoral-review_1930-09_30_12/page/1328/mode/2up

Dancing Parties Under "Catholic" Auspices (1916)

[84] Dancing Parties Under "Catholic" Auspices.

The current "Analecta" contains a document of special importance from the S. Congregation of Consistory. Its purpose is to enforce the decree of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore which prohibits "entertainments" with balls for the purpose of promoting pious projects—"convivia cum choreis". The "provida mens" of the Bishops in Council assembled not only forbade such entertainments but enjoined the pastors to do what they could to prevent them. "Mandamus quoque ut sacerdotes illum abusum, quo convivia parantur cum choreis (balls) ad opera pia promovenda, omnino tollendum current" (Conc. Plen. Balt. III. cap. V, n. 290).

How far ecclesiastical superiors may be responsible for the neglect of the decree is not easy to determine; but the fact that Catholic papers in various parts openly advertise such entertainments would indicate that no particular censorship has been exercised in the matter. A primary qualification of fitness of a Catholic editor is or should be the ability to exercise intelligent responsibility in safeguarding, besides knowing, the diocesan laws. Catholic editors may have been guided in such matters by priests who overlooked these laws. Some of them have been foreigners, and diocesan statutes, much less the Baltimore Councils, were not their normal guides. So the matter went on until we had a "custom" against which an individual voice and even the local Ordinaries found it difficult to raise a successful protest. Now the protest has come, apparently from Canada, whose border parishes have been invaded by the usage tolerated in the United States. It will be difficult to abandon it, at least without creating the discontent that turns hundreds who are bound by the chains of social [85] obligations away from the sacraments or the Church and religion. But the Holy See has made it clear that our tolerance has been amiss.

Once more we may be allowed to call attention to the conduct of the Catholic press. There has been a good deal of discussion recently about the duties of Catholic editors and about the support our people owe to Catholic periodicals. Some years ago the REVIEW published a paper on this subject. We reprint it in part here because it may be suggestive. The excuse of editors that "the priests should advise us in such matters" is puerile. A journalist has no right to assume the editorship of a Catholic paper unless he knows and is prepared to defend the laws of the Church, if need be even independently or against the practice of the priests. Says the writer referred to in the ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW:

When a brother custodian of "Religion's sacred fires" guards his trust according to his own conscience, even though is 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 me, unnecessarily 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.

[86] 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 (sess. XXII. c. 1. De ref.) forbids clerics under pain of ecclesiastical censure to be even present at any. The good and learned St. Charles Borromeo called dances "a circle of which the devil is 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. 9: 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 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's 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. (C. P. B.)

Such toleration, however, cannot be identified with the sanction given to public and fashionable dancing in connexion [sic] with Catholic charities or educational enterprises, in which [87] while we offer to Catholics aid and instruction with one hand, we press them down with the other to the low level in which they breathe sensual amusement. The advertisement of such amusements is not mere toleration.

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Source: J.F.S., "Dancing Parties under 'Catholic' Auspices," Ecclesiastical Review 55, no. 1 (July 1916): 84–87.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Changing the Traditions

 "It is absurd, and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received from the fathers of old."

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae.97.2 sed contra; 

From Gratian, Decreta, Distinction 12, ch. 5, quoting from a letter of Pope St. Nicholas I to Abp. Hincmar:

"It is a ridiculous and abominable disgrace that in our times we permit the holy Church of God to be slandered and that we suffer the traditions we have received from the fathers of ancient times to be infringed at will by those wandering from the truth."

Source: Gratian, The Treatise on Laws, trans. Augustine Thompson, With the Ordinary Gloss, trans. James Gordley (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1993), 44.

h/t Fr. Thomas Crean, OP. https://twitter.com/crean_fr/status/1530922903054733315