Do you have a problem with liturgical dancers?

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I do not support liturgical dancing. The thought is just enough to totally repel me. I’ve never even heard about liturgical dancing until this year.

Its just so sad that there are churches that actually allow this to happen. Remember how our Lord went into a temple and over turned the tables of the money changers?

How do you think He feels when He sees liturgical dancers at a Mass? I can’t believe this occurs! what has happened in some churches? Where is the reverence due to our Lord? Where? Iam not saying it happens at all NO Masses. Some are very reverent. But to actually know that this happens makes me sick.
 
It happens more in Africa where dancing is almost purely a religious activity. Here, in the West, it is, frankly, an erotic activity. Therefore, the cultural import plays a huge part in determining the suitability for the Mass. You shouldn’t be seeing it here at all because of the connotations deeply embedded in Western minds. In Africa it may be a different story, and, therefore, not be an occasion of sin/scandal.
 
Windmill said:
It happens more in Africa where dancing is almost purely a religious activity. Here, in the West, it is, frankly, an erotic activity. Therefore, the cultural import plays a huge part in determining the suitability for the Mass. You shouldn’t be seeing it here at all because of the connotations deeply embedded in Western minds. In Africa it may be a different story, and, therefore, not be an occasion of sin/scandal.
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The Mass should be the Mass worldwide. It should not change no matter what country its in. JMO.
 
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but even the Missal allows for variations. I am of a sympathetic mind as far as uniformity, but we have to have some perspective here. The reason we have so many rites in the church (Maronite, Byzantine, Ambrosian, Mozarabic, etc…) are because the church has always allowed for some regional influences. The Sarum rite in England was just a hair different from the Roman Rite. The Dominican rite of Mass has some slight differences with the ordinary chants. Certain rites in the normative mass can be legitimately omitted (ex. sign of peace).

In short, the mind of the church has never been ultra-strict with regards to uniformity.
 
It is not allowed in the West: THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

…
Cardinal Ratzinger concludes with some valuable reflections on specific liturgical gestures and postures: that most ancient, primordial Christian gesture, the Sign of the Cross; the indispensable role of kneeling, presented with its abundant biblical foundations; the appropriateness of standing and sitting at different moments, and the inappropriateness of “liturgical dance” in any shape or form! Here too (p. 198), Ratzinger is again very blunt, warning against any tendency to turn the liturgy into a form of entertainment wherein attention is self-consciously drawn to merely human attractiveness or achievement:
Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt in certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. For these people, the Crucifixion was only an appearance. . . . Dancing could take the place of the liturgy of the Cross, because, after all, the Cross was only an appearance. The cultic dances of the different religions have different purposes - incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy - none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy as the “reasonable sacrifice”. It is totally absurd to try to make the liturgy “attractive” by introducing dancing pantomimes (wherever possible performed by professional dance troupes), which frequently (and rightly, from the professionals’ point of view) end with applause. Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation.
Interestingly, however, Ratzinger sees no incompatibility between this unequivocal judgement against ‘liturgical dance’ and approval for those forms of ‘inculturation’ which the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship has allowed (since its Instruction of 1995) for certain African liturgies. He says (p. 199):
None of the Christian rites include dancing. What people call dancing in the Ethiopian rite or the Zairean [Congolese] form of the Roman liturgy is in fact a rhythmically ordered procession, very much in keeping with the dignity of the occasion. It provides an inner discipline and order for the various stages of the liturgy, bestowing on them beauty and, above all, making them worthy of God.
 
Doesn’t hand clapping and foot tapping to the music fall into the same category?
 
Have you ever done a Google search for liturgical dance? Click on images and you’ll get a lot of them.
 
One of the kids in our youth group watched the liturgical dancers at Religious Congress during Mass, and remarked “that’s so gay.”
He said what I was thinking, but since I am an adult cannot say since I would be kicked off the CCD team.

He was probably the only person in there with the guts to say the truth, which would probably horrify most people since we are supposed to be so caring and sensitive these days.

Now before all the pro-gay people bash me, I have nothing wrong with people with homosexual feelings, everyone has their cross to carry. Acting it out is a sin, one of the 5 sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance.

Now back to Liturgical Dancing…

Liturgical Dancing is wrong and disrespectful of God at Mass.

Scylla
 
I wouldn’t want it in my church that is for certain. I suppose I can see an argument in Africa which as pointed out its context is completely different than here. In the West though dancing is considered an entertainment at one level or another and therefore not appropriate. Also what is the point?

It is bad when we can’t stop from our distractions long enough to let God have even an hour of our undivided attention.
 
Windmill said:
It happens more in Africa where dancing is almost purely a religious activity. Here, in the West, it is, frankly, an erotic activity. Therefore, the cultural import plays a huge part in determining the suitability for the Mass. You shouldn’t be seeing it here at all because of the connotations deeply embedded in Western minds. In Africa it may be a different story, and, therefore, not be an occasion of sin/scandal.
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So are we saying that Swan Lake and other classical ballet performances are erotic? That’s a stretch except for really young guys with roaring hormones. I am not a proponent of liturgical dance because the two occasions when I observed it, it just didn’t fit the venue. Mass is not intended to be theatre.
 
Personally? I would -]walk/-] RUN for the nearest exit if I were to see it happen at Mass.
I will not “participate” in such activity even by witnessing it.
But, that is me. 😉
 
Hellisreal said:
Personally? I would -]walk/-] RUN for the nearest exit if I were to see it happen at Mass.
I will not “participate” in such activity even by witnessing it.
But, that is me. 😉
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Iam glad that at our church, this would NEVER happen! as for doing a google search, I think I’d get to disgusted viewing it.
 
TraditionalCath said:
Iam glad that at our church, this would NEVER happen! as for doing a google search, I think I’d get to disgusted viewing it.
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Take a look at the Eastern Christianity section. There is a thread there, that died recently (cant recall the title now) but, it will make you incredibly disgusted. Maybe you should not see it. I did, and I regret it deeply.:mad:
 
I don’t consider myself a “Traditional Catholic” (in the usual sense of the term), but I must say I find the idea of “liturgical dancing” rather repulsive. At least in the West, it cheapens the mass completely and takes away any sense of the sacred. (And that’s not to say that I oppose dancing in secular settings - I’m not that strict!).

However, this does not seem that widespread. I don’t ever recall seeing it.
 
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