St. John Vianney said:
“There is not a commandment of God which dancing does not cause men to break… Mothers may indeed say: ‘Oh, I keep an eye on their dress; you cannot keep guard over their heart. Go, you wicked parents, go down to Hell where the wrath of God awaits you, because of your conduct when you gave free scope to your children; go! It will not be long before they join you, seeing that you have shown them the way so well… Then you will see whether your pastor was right in forbidding those Hellish amusements.’” (Abbé Francis Trocu, The Curé D’Ars, St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, p. 146)
ig this is the case, then most people including myself are going to hell, should this be taken literally?
No. For if it were taken like that, then that would suggest that:
- Miriam sister of Moses (Exodus 15)
- David (2 Samuel 6)
were damned.
Most of Scotland would fry, and Ireland, and Africa. Since there is no reason to think that he was referring to the sword dance or any kind of war dance (which is the source of some Highland dances at least); & since it is unlikely in the extreme that those Fathers who condemn dancing (which is many, I believe) had the remotest notion that the Highlands of Scotland even existed (let alone that Highland dances would), those words cannot be be treated as an eternally valid judgement. He was not talking of all dances ever danced by all peoples, but of those familiar to his own parish. Had he intended to condemn Highland dancing, or the dance of Miriam & her rejoicing fellow-Israelites, he should have made his meaning much clearer. Preachers address their own people, & what those people know; they do not usually make statements which allow of absolutely no exception when those statements could be falsified by looking outside the society in which their hearers live.
The Church used not to bury actors in consecrated ground, as recently as the 17th century. Now, it does. This is because the moral character of the activity changed - it is not the not the name of the activity that is the subject of moral judgements (acting would be acting, even if it were called something else), but the activity itself. Murder can be renamed - but the unlawful killing of an innocent person is as immoral as ever. So with dancing. It can be immoral in one society, without staying immoral: because the features of it which attract condemnation may not be essential to it; lap-dancing is immoral - it does not follow that all dancing is lap-dancing
That dancing can be indecent and an occasion of sin can be granted without rejecting all dancing, everywhere, of all kinds - otherwise rejection of it as immoral ends up condemning Miriam & David. Of course it can be sinful - but so can what people say. Is everlasting silence the solution ? “Can be” does not imply “cannot avoid being”.
It would help if we knew
exactly why he judged it to be wrong. Perhaps because of the clothing of those doing it ? There is a great difference between a high-kicking dance like the can-can, and the sort of dance engaged in by those who are covered up & so, do not show any leg.
Some people would regard kilts as indecent - but this is a culturally conditioned judgement: for a society in which kilts are normal would not find them so - people from a trousered culture, might. And the countries that were Catholic in the time of St. John, were largely trousered. So what an Italian Catholic might find an occasion of sin, would not necessarily be an occasion for a Catholic from the Western Isles.
Chastity is a universal obligation, and good in all cultures, times, & circumstances. This does not imply that what one culture finds immoral at one time, is for that reason always immoral & all times & in all places, under all cirumstances. Lap-dancing is inherently unchaste - Scottish Country Dancing, is not; just as a hoe-down need not be.
BTW - he started as a rigorist. Then he read St. Alphonsus, & ceased to be. Is the quotation from his rigorist period ? It would be interesting to know; then it would be easier to understand his reasoning as he intended it.
