On the Church's Pastoral Responsibility to Obdurate Sinners

Though the sexual revolution of the 1960s was almost as half century ago, some Catholic commentators are now finding that our culture is suddenly rife with sexual immorality. Many of the practices these commentators decry have been with us for some time now, and yet the Church has not chosen to address these as if they portend the end of Western civilization. These include the widespread practice of artificial contraception by Catholic couples and the cohabitation of heterosexual couples prior to marriage.

The sudden interest in denouncing sexual sin raises (for me) some intriguing pastoral questions. In this posting, I’d like to ask questions about what the appropriate pastoral response for Christians intent on addressing the rise of sexual immorality in society. As a preface to my meditation, I want to note that even though the vast majority of married Catholics in Western nations have been practicing artificial contraception for several decades now, the sudden appearance of Catholic rhetoric decrying sexual sin coincides not with that development, but with the struggle of gay human beings to emerge onto the stage of human history as persons and not despised objects.

After all, in Catholic teaching, the same moral norms condemn homosexual genital acts and artificial contraception for the same reason. In both cases, the sexual act is considered gravely immoral because it is not open to the procreative purpose of sexuality.

Since there has not, until now, been such a hue and cry in Catholic circles about the growing sexual licentiousness of Western culture, it is hard to avoid wondering if the renewed interest in pelvic morality is designed to rally Catholics to stand against the attempt of gay persons to move from the status of demeaned objects to full personhood. In what follows, I’d like to ask some questions about the best way—-the most pastoral way—-for those concerned about the salvation of gay persons to communicate to their gay brothers and sisters in Christ they are headed for damnation, and represent an unparalleled threat to the traditional family and to Western culture.

Catholic moral theology has traditionally used case studies to probe moral issues and the preferred pastoral response to those issues. As a prelude to my set of questions about the best pastoral approach the Church can offer gay believers, I’d like to propose a case study for consideration.

My study centers on a moral concern that has fallen into desuetude in some churches, including the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, this is a concern that was once a burning moral issue in various churches, including the Catholic Church. Given that it is intimately connected to sexual morality, perhaps any thoroughgoing attempt to revive the hard-line practice of placing sexual sins under the microscope should also take another look at this forgotten moral issue.

I am referring, of course, to the ethically dubious practice of dancing—-dancing for “fun” and “recreation,” social dancing. For anyone seeking to dust off moral analysis of this widespread practice, which almost always leads to licentiousness, I propose the following considerations:

1. The Scriptural basis for condemning dancing is abundant, though admittedly not without problems. There is, first of all, the silence of Jesus on the topic.

Even so, one may justifiably argue that Jesus was silent about the moral danger of dancing precisely because the prohibition against dancing was so strong in his culture that anyone hearing his preaching would realize he was assuming that dancing was immoral. As with Jesus's clear (but unspoken) views about the immorality of homosexuality, this is one of those astonishing cases in which the argumentum e silentio is not a weak argument, but an exceedingly strong one: the very silence of Jesus speaks volumes about his concern with this burning issue.

After all, in Judaism, men and women never danced together—-a fact which signals awareness that dancing is, in its very nature, morally problematic, since it incites lust. And though the Jewish scriptures sometimes have people dancing as a form of worship, by the time of Jesus, dancing was associated with pagan worship (more on this below), and disciples of Jesus would have recognized that his silence about dancing presupposed the widespread Jewish abhorrence of anything connected to pagan worship.

There is also the fact that Jesus never tells people to dance. Instead, he talks constantly about walking: he instructs his followers to walk in the way of salvation; he tells his followers to tread in his footsteps. It is clear that Jesus himself walked rather than danced. Even in his resurrected state, Jesus refrained from dancing alongside the disciples who met him on the road to Emmaus. He trod solemnly beside them, if scripture is to be believed—-and does the Church not teach us that the gospels are absolutely reliable historical accounts of the life of Jesus?

Let us not forget that Jesus instructs us to find the straight and narrow way, lest we lose our souls. No one can dance along a straight and narrow way! The narrow path requires sober walking, step by step.

One must also consider the many non-gospel admonitions of the New Testament that, while they do not clearly spell out the dire sinfulness of dancing, do indicate that it is a morally problematic practice for Christians. Paul enjoins us to remember that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Would any faithful Christian honestly envisage taking the temple of the Spirit to a juke joint and flailing it about shamelessly on the dance floor?

The Christian scriptures enjoin Christians to live soberly, with attention to the spirit and not the flesh, in this fleeting world to which Jesus might return at any moment. In such a context, dancing would clearly have been viewed as a frittering of time and energy better devoted to prayer and good works.

Above all, we can be absolutely certain that, in contrast to their Jewish forebears, the early Christians did not bring dancing into their liturgical assemblies. Dancing was tainted by association with the licentious worship of pagan gods.

There is also the constant and unambiguous evidence of both the Jewish and Christian scriptures that women are temptresses, and that they often employ dancing to lead men down the path of moral destruction. Salome’s lascivious capering clearly goes hand in hand with her thirst for the blood of the prophets.

In conclusion, despite the occasional appearance of dancing as a form of worship in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, it is clear that, in purifying Judaism and moving it from its focus on the flesh to a higher focus on the spirit, Christianity rightly left dancing behind as a form of worship, and recognized that dancing is all about carnal lust and its fulfillment.

Christianity has, after all, moved from fleshly notions of worship to spiritual ones, just as it has moved from the fleshly understanding of marriage in Judaism (which even permitted polygamy) to a sober spiritual understanding focused on lifelong monogamous marriage between one man and one woman. In its purest (read: Catholic) form, Christianity even holds up the ideal of chastity not only for those who follow the evangelical counsels, but for married couples as well. The ideal Catholic marriage is one in which husband and wife never have intercourse, but devote themselves to higher and more spiritual things, in emulation of Mary and Joseph, the Model Holy Family.

2. The argument from tradition is also straightforward. A plethora of Fathers of the Church both patristic and medieval condemned dancing as mortally sinful, in no uncertain terms.

As St. Cyprian notes in his “On the Public Shows,” “And that David in the presence of God led the dances, is no sanction for faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public theatre; for David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements, to represent in his dancing the story of Grecian lust.” This sentiment is echoed by St. Augustine in his “Commentary on Genesis,” which notes that dancing was associated with licentious pagan worship.

If further evidence is needed, one can compare these patristic authorities with the Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria, whose “On the Contemplative Life” points out that, in Greek and Roman temple worship, men and women danced together and drank wine while doing so—a prelude to lascivious behavior.

Dancing was also regarded by the Fathers of the Church as morally suspect because it was, quite specifically, what women liked to do, and lamentably, often in gatherings unsupervised by men. The Priscillianist heresy was condemned in large part because its adherents were primarily women who gathered in secret conclaves to worship—-and, it was rumored-—to dance as they worshiped. Is it any wonder that subsequent Christian history is rife with accounts of the devil seducing weak-minded women to go into the woods or to mountain tops to dance with the devil and his minions?

One may not credibly argue that because the current catechism does not condemn dancing, the longstanding moral prohibition of dancing should therefore be overlooked. On that basis, we might just as well argue that, because a majority of married Catholics today practice contraception, the sensus fidelium is a more trustworthy guide to how various practices should be assessed than is the teaching of the Magisterium. And as we know, the catechism itself teaches us that a true Christian conscience always adheres to Magisterial teaching.

The seriousness of dancing as a moral concern is indicated throughout Christian history by the fact that priests and nuns have historically avoided dances and dancing establishments (except as supervisors). Priests, nuns, and brothers stringently supervised the dancing of Catholic teens for generations, holding something between dancing couples to force the partners to dance at a distance from each other, pinning cloths on the bare chests of girls brazen enough to appear at a dance not fully covered. Priests and religious have long recognized that dancing puts the body parts of men and women to illicit use—-though one must wonder whether, in this “weak” age of the Church, consecrated persons retain their keen moral insight into the dangers of dancing. The weight of tradition is clear: the life of the Spirit is about the spirit and not the flesh!

Indeed, in any careful survey of church tradition regarding this moral issue, it must be noted that the Third Council of Baltimore strictly prohibited clerics from staging balls. And the important Vatican “Decree Concerning Certain Dances in the United States and Canada” in June 1916 cannot be overlooked as crucial evidence regarding the seriousness with which the Church looks at the practice of social dancing.

In this decree, issued by the Vatican’s Sacred Consistorial Congregation and read in all American and Canadian Catholic churches on 18 June 1916, Pope Benedict XV banned dancing at all Catholic entertainments in the U.S. and Canada.

So serious was the threat of dancing to the faithful as the 20th century began, that one zealous defender of moral propriety, Cardinal Farley of New York, instructed his priests about the 1916 Decree as follows: “We say it with deep regret that pleasure in its most alluring and degrading forms has entered into the homes of our land, and we cannot in loyalty to our conscience stand by do nothing against this stream of easy morality which is daily becoming broader and more menacing.”

The good Cardinal added, “The Church has always been the open enemy of the world with all its errors and vices, and the strong defender of truths and conduct, against which the world so strongly rebels.” As he noted, dancing leads inevitably to “subversion of spiritual life,” and all pastors were expected to “obey in minutest detail the terms of the decree.” Indeed, the Decree itself maintains that dancing endangers the Christian family, since it keeps one family member or another up late at night for amusement away from the family circle and its life of prayer.

3. The argument from nature is equally unambiguous. Simply put, it goes like this: if God meant us to dance, God would have designed our bodies to caper and flow rhythmically with natural ease. Our limbs would be long and sinuous, were we designed to dance, not functional and stubby, designed for walking, running, working—-but not to caper and strut on dance floors where inciting pleasure is the name of the game.

Careful observation of natural law suggests to us that anywhere it occurs (except perhaps in liturgical usage, and even then...), dancing is a predictable prelude to sin. It incites the baser spirits, leading inevitably to copulation that does not have total self-giving and procreation anywhere in mind.

Dancing puts the body to a use God clearly did not intend when God designed the body for work and for procreation. There is no mention at all of dancing in the Garden of Eden. It would not be too strong to conclude that hardened dancers are generally dissolute, given to promiscuity and a rotation of dancing “partners.” Were it not so, faithful Irish priests would not for so many generations have lurked at the crossroads of their parishes, to see if any secret dance was being staged there, to be broken up in order to preserve the virtue of the faithful.

For the preceding reasons, dancing has long been regarded as grave matter in the moral theology of many churches. Many churches have long held the very act of dancing to be sinful, regardless of the circumstances in which it occurs or the intent of the dancer.

The argument from nature suggests that dancing is exceptionally dangerous for another portentous reason other than those previously cited. Modern dancing is particularly dangerous in this regard: it undermines the complementary but distinctly different roles of males and females by making it appear that men and women are equal and can do the same things. Whereas in traditional dancing—-as morally dubious as it was—-men led and women followed, in modern dancing, the two partners stand face to face and mimic each other’s steps and gyrations.

That is to say, women mimic the steps of their male partners, since natural law tells us that men are made to lead and women to follow. Modern dancing might even entice women to conclude that they have the “right” to be ordained priests, since they can dance equally as well—-they can perform the same steps—-as men.

Modern dancing may lead misguided women to attempt to twist Holy Scripture to justify their absurd claim to a "right" that does not exist. Modern dancing may lead women to conclude that because Miriam danced in praise after God led the Hebrew people through the Red Sea, she was a “priestess.” And yet this twisting of the scriptural evidence would overlook that it was David who danced before the Lord, whereas Miriam merely danced before the people of God. Scripture is clear about the fact that only males were chosen to dance before the Ark-—a foreshadowing of Jesus’s choice to ordain only males at the Last Supper, when he instituted the priesthood and the Eucharist.

Is it any wonder, then, that Holy Pope Benedict XV chose to forbid dancing at American Catholic entertainments? He did so because modern dancing was moving toward a wild licentiousness that, he well knew, would lead to decay of the family and the dissolution of all moral norms in modern culture. And was he not right? The Charleston, with its flailings about of limbs, bosoms, and what not, was right around the corner . . . .

Roma locuta, causa finita: can true Catholics cast aside the words of the Holy Magisterium, as they dress and primp for their next dance? The 1916 magisterial “Decree Concerning Certain Dances in the United States and Canada” is not, after all, difficult to read and to understand. In His infinite wisdom and mercy, God has given the Holy Spirit charge to lead the Church without error. It is the Spirit who speaks when the Holy Magisterium speaks. The role of true Catholics is not to question, but to obey.

It is surely time for us to return to the faith of our fathers, which was much more serious about the moral dangers of depraved practices such as mixed social dancing than are we faint-hearted Christians of the present. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have an obligation to inform dancers of the danger to their immortal souls posed by their continued practice of the morally unjustifiable act of dancing.

How shall we go about our pastoral task? The case study is designed to lead to the following set of questions:

1. When Christians are convinced that some group (e.g., unrepentant dancers) is comprised of obstinate sinners, and that group refuses to admit its sin, what should be the Christian response to this group?

2. What is the authentically pastoral tactic in approaching a group of obstinate sinners who are unwilling to admit their sin?

3. In the case of hardened dancers, are faithful Catholics obliged to go into dance halls and announce to those gathered there that they are headed to hell?

4. Should those making such announcements also announce that they are, of course, motivated entirely by compassion for these hardened sinners who are in danger of the fires of hell? Would the announcement of compassion be believable to those engaged in dancing without a thought of their eternal salvation, or would they perhaps feel unjustly targeted and underwhelmed by the professed compassion of those whose only concern is to save their souls?

5. Is the best pastoral response of one seeking to inform dancers unconscious of (or resistant to) the message that they are mortal sinners to note that proclaiming the Truth of the sin of others is always an act of compassion, since Love and Truth are equivalent in Christian thought?

6. Would the preceding steps be likely to convince dancers of the error of their ways and turn them to Christ? Would they likely yield the mass return of hardened dancers to the Church?

7. If not, what might be a more acceptable or appropriate pastoral response to the heinous sin of hardened, unrepentant dancers?

And, oh, yes, what would Jesus do?

William D. Lindsey