1 January 1983

Your Excellency:

We are writing to ask you to use your authority to bring to an end the very grave abuse of dancing during the liturgy. You will certainly have received many complaints concerning this outrageous practice which is now widespread throughout the U.S.A. We are sure that Your Excellency will agree that the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the making present of Jesus Christ upon our altars as a victim, to be offered to the Blessed Trinity, is not a suitable occasion for vaudeville entertainment. There is no doubt whatsoever that the religious sensibilities of our Catholic people have been profoundly and adversely affected by the imposition of the New Mass. The late Archbishop R. J. Dwyer, of Portland, Oregon, lamented this sad fact in an undelivered letter to Pope Paul VI. He wrote:

Communicants flock to the Communion rail in all sorts of attire, from short shorts to near bathing suit undress ... near Jazz music in rollicking fashion accompanies those approaching the Table of Our Lord ... Many children do not genuflect any more. Many adults also fail to genuflect. They roam around Church, sit down in their pew without even so much as a nod to recognize Our Lord in the tabernacle. The Real Presence is not emphasized—the supreme holiness of the Blessed Sacrament has been relegated to the background. The bread and wine have been too completely represented as symbols "of the work of men's hands."

As Your Excellency must be well aware, having celebrated the Tridentine Mass so many times yourself, it is the most sublime act of worship ever known to man, a worthy setting for the making present of the sacrifice of our redemption throughout the nations and centuries. It is a sublime rite in which earth and heaven meet, in which things human are mingled with things divine, and during which the angels of God must certainly bow down in awe with the sons of Adam crying Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus when Jesus Christ, our Savior and our God, becomes present among us at each new celebration. But to the American Bishops that sacred rite has become an abomination; they have imposed in its place an English version of the New Mass which is banal at the very best. Nothing remains of the sacred atmosphere which gave us all a foretaste of the bliss of heaven. Such was the banality of the New Mass, such its lack of inspiration and spiritual solace, that the faithful began to drift away. In order to keep their congregations many priests began to introduce gimmicks into the Mass which entertained the people for a while, but only for a while. As each new gimmick lost its power to excite a congregation new ones had to be devised. Guitars, banners, profane music, Communion in the hand, Communion under both kinds, regiments of extraordinary ministers, clown costumes, pets in the sanctuary, all made their appearance. The Mass is often becoming an occasion for profane entertainment rather than divine worship. The frequent spectacle of dancing girls disporting themselves before the altar is one of the most deplorable manifestations of this trend.

From a report in the May 28, 1981 Long Island Catholic, the "dance" was performed at a wedding—during the Offertory.

Your Excellency must certainly be well aware that dancing has never at any time formed part of the official liturgical worship of Judaism or Christianity, and in 1975 the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship stated authoritatively that dancing "cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatsoever." This ruling appeared in Notitiae II (1975), the official journal of the Sacred Congregation. In its explanation of why dancing is unacceptable within the liturgy, the Sacred Congregation did not rule out the possibility of dancing as an expression of religious sentiment, providing that it takes place outside the liturgy. It may well be that Your Excellency has not had the opportunity to study this ruling, and so we are reproducing it here in the hope that this may be of some assistance to you. The relevant section reads as follows:

The dance has never been made an integral part of the official worship of the Latin Church.

If local churches have accepted the dance, sometimes even in the church building, that was on the occasion of feasts in order to manifest sentiments of joy and devotion. But that always took place outside of liturgical services.

Conciliar decisions have often condemned the religious dance because it conduces little to worship and because it could degenerate into disorders.

Actually, in favor of the dance in the liturgy, an argument could be drawn from the passage of the Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, in which are given the norms for adaptation of the liturgy to the character and the traditions of the various peoples:

"In matters which do not affect the faith or the well-being of an entire community, the Church does not wish, even in the Liturgy, to impose a rigid uniformity; on the contrary, she respects and fosters the genius and talents of various races and peoples. Whatever in their way of life is not indissolubly bound up with superstition and error, she looks upon with benevolence and if possible keeps it intact, and sometimes even admits it into the Liturgy provided it accords with the genuine and authentic liturgical spirit."

Theoretically, it could be deduced from that passage that certain forms of dancing and certain forms of dancing and certain dance patterns could be introduced into Catholic worship.

Nevertheless, two conditions could not be prescinded from.

The first: to the extent in which the body is a reflection of the soul, dancing, with all its manifestations, would have to express sentiments of faith and adoration in order to become a prayer.

The second condition: just as all the gestures and movements found in the liturgy are regulated by the competent ecclesiastical authority, so also dancing as a gesture would have to be under its discipline.

Concretely: there are cultures in which this is possible insofar as dancing is still reflective of religious values and becomes a clear manifestation of them. Such is the case of the Ethiopians. In their culture, even today, there is the religious ritualized dance, clearly distinct from the martial dance and from the amorous dance. The ritual dance is performed by priests and levites before beginning a ceremony and in the open area in front of the church. The dance accompanies the chanting of psalms during the procession. When the procession enters the church, then the chanting of the psalms is carried out with and accompanied by a body movement.

The same thing is found in the Syriac liturgy by means of chanting Psalms.

In the Byzantine liturgy, there is an extremely simplified dance on the occasion of a wedding when the crowned spouses make a circular revolution around the lectern together with the celebrant.

Such is the case of the Israelites: in the synagogue their prayer is accompanied by a continuous movement to recall the precept from tradition: "When you pray, do so with all your heart, and all your bones." And for primitive peoples the same observation can be made.

However, the same criterion and judgment cannot be applied in the western culture.

Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses: such dancing, in general, is not pure.

For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: that would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.

Neither can acceptance be had of the proposal to introduce into the liturgy the so-called artistic ballet because there would be presentation here also of a spectacle at which one would assist, while in the liturgy one of the norms from which one cannot prescind is that of participation.

Therefore, there is a great difference in cultures: what is well received in one culture cannot be taken on by another culture.

The traditional reserve of the seriousness of religious worship, and of the Latin worship in particular, must never be forgotten.

If the proposal of the religious dance in the West is really to be made welcome, care will have to be taken that in its regard a place be found outside of the liturgy, in assembly areas which are not strictly liturgical. Moreover, the priests must always be excluded from the dance.

We can recall how much was derived from the presence of the Samoans at Rome for the missionary festival of 1971. At the end of the Mass, they carried out their dance in St. Peter's Square: and all were joyful.

Despite this very clear ruling the abuse of dancing in the Mass is spreading throughout the United States. One of the leading advocates of the abuse is Mgr. Joseph Champlin, Vicar for Parish Life and Worship in the Diocese of Syracuse. He is certainly the most prolific and widely read writer on liturgical topics in the United States, and his books receive enthusiastic endorsement by individual bishops and both national and local liturgical committees. In an article published in the Joliet Catholic Explorer on 13 April 1979, Mgr. Champlin boasted that so-called liturgical dancing was already widespread in the U.S.A. He also boasted that the American bishops had given their stamp of approval to the concept, and all the available evidence indicates that this was no idle boast. We will provide you with just a few examples of this evidence.

The 15 August 1980 issue of the Catholic Telegraph carried a report on Sister Patricia Schuckert who claims to have taken up "liturgical dancing" at the suggestion of her spiritual director. "She not only discovered muscles that she never knew she had, but she also discovered a whole new way of communicating with God." In fact, she appears to believe that we cannot communicate with God unless we dance, "because if we are all locked up, God can't move within us." She claims that dance in the liturgy "reflects the Vatican II understanding of worship," and, the report tells us "A favorite dance of Sister Schuckert is to dance the Offertory gifts to the altar, incense them, incense the people, and then invite the celebrant to the table."

The most alarming aspect of the spread of this abuse is the endorsement it receives from bishops. The 3 April 1980 Catholic Standard and Times carried a report and photograph of a group of young ladies clad in what appear to be rather short men's shirts cavorting in the sanctuary of a church during the Communion rite of a Confirmation Mass. What a scandal that young Catholics should be led by their clergy into such blatant defiance of the Pope on so solemn an occasion, and who was presiding over it but Archbishop Bernardin. It might have been hoped that as a result of this and many similar manifestations of his contempt for the Holy See Your Excellency would have recommended his dismissal, but, incredibly, you recommended his appointment to the position of Archbishop of Chicago.

Students perform at Holy Angels Catholic Church. From the Milwaukee Sentinel, December 7, 1981.

The April 23-24 issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat carried a photograph of dancers gyrating in the sanctuary of St. Louis Cathedral. It provided the disturbing information that two leading exponents of "liturgical dancing," Carla de Sola and Gloria Weyman, were among six "specialists" in this topic who were given the opportunity of indoctrinating 4000 participants at a pastoral musician's convention. During the convention Father James Telhorst, Director of the Office of Worship of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said that dance during the Mass was rare in St. Louis parishes. One might have hoped that this was due to respect for the sanctity of the Holy Sacrifice and the liturgical legislation of the Holy See, but this was not the case—it was due to the lack of qualified dancers! Father Telhorst expressed himself in favor of the liturgical dance.

The 28 February 1981 issue of The Catholic Herald Citizen reported that four bishops were present and displayed great enthusiasm at a Mass in St. John's Cathedral, Milwaukee when a group of young women began to cavort in the sanctuary. Needless to say, Archbishop Weakland was among their number. This was but one of a number of such occasions when he has presided over similar acts of liturgical rebellion. This letter is accompanied by a number of photographs which require no comment.

St. Cletus Students performed a liturgical dance in lieu of one of the readings at the Mass.

 

Your Excellency, we are witnessing a pattern that has become depressingly familiar to Catholics in this country. One liturgical abuse after another has been introduced in defiance of the Pope to be encouraged and eventually approved by our bishops—Communion in the hand, Communion under both kinds on Sundays, and the use of altar girls provide but three examples. We beg you to use your authority at once to curtail this new abuse which makes a mockery of the Holy Sacrifice. If you do not do so it will become too widespread to eradicate, and we shall be one step nearer the total degradation of the liturgy. Please, Your Excellency, do not let this happen.

We remain, Your Grace, your obedient servants.

The Editors

The Most Reverend Pio Laghi
The Apostolic Delegation
3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008