St. John Vianney's Sermon condemns dances?

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olrl.org/snt_docs/dancing.shtml

Does this not condemn dances? Why then are there so many Catholic schools that host dances?

It is not just St. John Vianney who condemns it. It is also St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim, St. Charles Borromeo, and St. Ambrose, and possibly more.
 
He may have condemned the dancing that he was observing in his parish as that time. Maybe everyone was doing his century’s version of twerking.

More importantly, stay away from that site. It’s not faithful to the Magisterium and you don’t want to be led astray with their disobedience and rebellious spirit as they deny the validity of the Mass in Ordinary Form and reject the Second Vatican Council, among other things. In other words, although their website contains some Catholic things, they are not Catholic.
catholicculture.org/culture/reviews/view.cfm?recnum=865
 
Not everything a saint says during his or her lifetime is Church teaching. That doesn’t mean that saints didn’t lead holy lives or that they aren’t in Heaven. But their opinions on these matters don’t hold nearly the same weight as what we would find in the Catechism.

I will admit I don’t think St. John Vianney and I would have been very good friends if he were living today. But that doesn’t mean I think the Church was wrong to canonize him or that he wasn’t holy. I just think he had some very bizarre opinions, and this would be one of them.
 
LightBound said:
He may have condemned the dancing that he was observing in his parish as that time. Maybe everyone was doing his century’s version of twerking.

More importantly, stay away from that site. It’s not faithful to the Magisterium and you don’t want to be led astray with their disobedience and rebellious spirit as they deny the validity of the Mass in Ordinary Form and reject the Second Vatican Council, among other things. In other words, although their website contains some Catholic things, they are not Catholic.
catholicculture.org/culture/reviews/view.cfm?recnum=865
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But if he was only condemning the dancing at that time, why were there other saints who lived hundreds of years before him condemn it?

The sermon is on other websites I just got it from this one because it was the first one.
 
theoda said:
But if he was only condemning the dancing at that time, why were there other saints who lived hundreds of years before him condemn it?

The sermon is on other websites I just got it from this one because it was the first one.
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Not to appear like a soundbite from either edition of the movie “Footloose”, but dancing is neither condemned in the Bible or by the Church. I have no idea why some Saints throughout the ages have been against dancing- as I said in my previous post, it could very well be that the dancing they were observing was something like what we’d call “Dirty Dancing”…you know, grinding, twerking…the stuff that kids get (hopefully) thrown out of the prom for doing.

The Cure of Ars probably had some naughty parishioners partaking of some raunchy dancing and he decided to speak out against it.
 
When St John Vianney arrived in his parish, hardly anyone went to Mass. Spiritually, the place was a mess. It might be thought of as a situation similar to a “party school.”

When people are converting, they often need to stay away from near occasions of sin. As the town converted, I imagine some bad stuff was still going on among the unconverted and that it was these types of activities which the good saint was warning those in church on Sundays against, not heavily-chaperoned Catholic school dances.

This is one of the problems with reading sermons: they are delivered to a certain audience at a certain time. Later readers need to be careful in their assessment of the information: is the priest using euphemisms? Is what is being discussed a perenial Church teaching? What was the situation in the parish at that time? And something we will never know: what were people confessing? This last question often allows a priest to know a lot more about what is happening than we would think from his activities.
 
You could easily find saints who praise dancing, too.

First off, maidens dancing was an essential part of the more joyful sorts of Jewish religious processions. Maidens dancing and singing songs in the fields about how the young men should choose a good wife, etc. were part of Jewish holiday celebrations, and many matches were figured out among families because a young man and young woman got a good look at each other during these feasts.

Jewish men dancing was also an essential part of celebration, religious and otherwise. Jesus and his disciples undoubtedly did a ton of dancing at the wedding at Cana, and they probably looked very handsome as they did it.

So even though the sexes did not usually dance together, you can hardly expect Catholicism to condemn dancing when Jesus would have done it, and it was commanded in God’s Law for certain times of the year.

One of the earliest Christian hymns known is a Greek song to be sung by maidens dancing at a wedding. It praises Christ the Bridegroom.

St. Francis de Sales warns about the dangers of going to balls, but he also says that a devout Catholic living in the world should be a reasonably graceful dancer. (Because it was a basic social skill.) Being clumsy or refusing to dance would make you stand out in a bad way. (He felt this way on many subjects; for example, that a devout person living in the world should always be dressed nicely, never the worst dressed or least fashionable, and never looking messy, even though never being super-showy.)

St. Teresa of Avila often played guitar and made her nuns dance during their rest and recreation periods, because they needed the exercise and the fun. In both men’s and women’s monasteries, dancing was often a form of recreation that got the blood moving in people’s feet - essential in orders that wore sandals in the winter.

St. Thomas Aquinas praises dancing as a form of game that relaxes the mind.

I could probably think of more examples, but I think that’s plenty for pulling them off the top of my head!

St. Jean Vianney, OTOH, was dealing with people going to local dances which turned into nothing but drinking, mass brawls, and feeling people up (probably lots of sex out back, in some cases). You should remember that his village started out as a sort of rural slum full of crime and even some killings, so that was what he was fighting. So you will see him say stuff about dancing and music that are what a ghetto priest today might say about kids doing dirty dances. He’s not talking about a nice little square dance with nice people in attendance.
 
Our school always had chaperons at the school dances, which were tame compared to some places.

Remember the movie, “Dirty Dancing?”

Maybe that’s what the Cure was getting at. No one seems to discuss the kind of dances these people enjoyed, and maybe they were serious occasions of sin. Perhaps that’s when afterward they got into some trouble, which happens on modern dates, too.
 
Dancing is also part of God’s comforting prophecies:

Ezekiel 13:1-14:
“At that time,” saith the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Thus saith the Lord: “The people that were left and escaped from the sword, found grace in the desert: Israel shall go to his rest.” The Lord hath appeared from afar to me. "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee. And I will build thee again, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy timbrels, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.
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“Thou shalt yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and they shall not gather the vintage before the time. For there shall be a day, in which the watchmen on mount Ephraim, shall cry, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.’”
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For thus saith the Lord: "Rejoice ye in the joy of Jacob, and cry out before the head of the Gentiles: shout ye, and sing, and say: ‘Save, O Lord, thy people, the remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and will gather them from the ends of the earth: and among them shall be the blind, and the lame, the woman with child, and she that is bringing forth, together, a great company of them returning hither. They shall come with weeping: and I will bring them back in mercy: and I will bring them through the torrents of waters in a right way, and they shall not stumble in it: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the islands that are afar off, and say: ‘He that scattered Israel will gather him: and he will keep him as the shepherd doth his flock.’ For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and delivered him out of the hand of one that was mightier than he. And they shall come, and shall give praise in mount Sion: and they shall flow together to the good things of the Lord, for the corn, and wine, and oil, and the increase of cattle and herds, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall be hungry no more.
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“Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, the young men and old men together: and I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them joyful after their sorrow. And I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness: and my people shall be filled with my good things,” saith the Lord.
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And of course, Ecclesiastes 3:4:
“A time to mourn and a time to dance.”
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Dancing in the wrong way, or on the wrong occasions, is what is criticized. Dancing by itself is a morally neutral or praiseworthy action.

I forgot that Our Lord put dancing into the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:25):
“Now his elder son was in the field, and when he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.”
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Since the father in the story symbolizes Our Father, obviously dancing is a good thing that expresses God’s loving welcome to us!

In case you’re interested, the Greek is “symphonias kai choron”. “Symphonias” implies more than one instrument, and “choron” implies men or women dancing and singing in a single-sex line, which was a pretty common form of dance among both Jews and Greeks. (And it still is common, if you go to Greek or Jewish weddings or ethnic festivals.)

The “chorus” in Greek plays did this same thing; the strophe and antistrophe of the poetic lines were part of the choreography of the dancing and singing. Spartans were known to be particularly good at choral dancing, but they usually did it nekkid at sports contests (Spartans were weird), instead of having clothed choruses at plays or normal celebrations, like the Athenians and most Greeks.

So this verse is about line dancing. 🙂
 
theoda said:
olrl.org/snt_docs/dancing.shtml

Does this not condemn dances? Why then are there so many Catholic schools that host dances?

It is not just St. John Vianney who condemns it. It is also St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim, St. Charles Borromeo, and St. Ambrose, and possibly more.
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They should probably have a talk with King David who regularly danced and used it in liturgy. 😃

You have to take these things in context - In St. John Vianney’s time, these dance halls were something akin to the modern day night club. Certainly not a place for virtue or holiness. Today, that still exists, but there are also places where dancing is more appropriate.

Hope that helps!
 
theoda said:
olrl.org/snt_docs/dancing.shtml

Does this not condemn dances? Why then are there so many Catholic schools that host dances?

It is not just St. John Vianney who condemns it. It is also St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim, St. Charles Borromeo, and St. Ambrose, and possibly more.
Click to expand...
I absolutely agree with them, the waltz is a licentious thing that leads to the corruption of youth, the partners facing each other, body to body, the location of the lead’s hands, all that twirling, it is practically sex.
 
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