Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1906-01-15
CATHOLIC BISH OP DENOUNCES
DANCING.

Bishop William Stang of Fall River,
Mass, writes the following letter:
Reverend and Dear Father-The
diocesan statutes are now in your
hands and you are bound in con-
science to study them and to put
them into execution. While por-
ton of them are for your own sancti-
fication end pastoral direction,
several DEGREES refer directly to the
conduct of the people committed to
your care. Thus, it is strictly for
hidden to have dancing on Saturday
nights and Sundays. Saturday night
dances lead to dissertation of the
Lords day; they have been source
of misery and scandal in the past;
they must be stopped at once.
"While calling the attention of
your people to statute 81, you will
denounce, with apostolic freedom
and zeal, indiscriminate and lascivious
dances, so common in our days.
Although balls and dancing be
recreations Of their own nature indif-
ferent,' as st. Francis de Sales mod
erately remarks, 'yet on account of
the manner in which they are gen.
orally conducted they. preponderate
very much on the side of evil and are
extremely dapgerous.' Remember
the holy doctor here speaks of
Indifferent dancing; he considers
even this kind OF dancing as danger
Gus and susceptible of evil and an
opportunity for some basilisk to
breathe loose words into the ears and
to cast an impure look or wanton
chances into the heart.
"The world may sheer at such
teaching and call our denu nciations
exaggerations and unreasonable ex-
actions without solid foundation.
''The silly girl sees no harm in
going to dances, until like the unwary
butterfly that gets too near the fame,
she has the wings of her soul s1nged
by the flame of impure love and her
innocence has vanished forever, leav-
ing her the dark prospect of a ruined
future, if not an early grave of shame.
''The fathers and doctors are
unanimous in branding the custom of
dancing as an infectious sink of i'm
piety and obscenity, as the school of
vice and the grave of innocence.
Speaking of the dancing of Herodias.
which cost the head of one of the
} hottest men, st. John Chrysostom
says: 1T is the devil that made her
dance so gracefully; for he is always
present where there is Dance
''Even pagans looked upon dancing
as vicious thing. Cicero considered
dancing fit only for drunkards and
fools, when he maintained: No one
sober Is ever found to dance, unless
he be fool.'
Among the kinds of modern dances
pointed out by theologians as decid-
eddy indecent and therefore strictly
forbidden are what are called the
waltz, polka, galop and others of a
kindred nature.
"The second plenary council OF
Baltimore makes it our sacred duty
to attack and condemn immodest
dances, which are daily growing more
common. 1t is our duty to admonish
the faithful how they sin, not only
against GOD, but against society, their
families, and against themselves, by
taking part in these dances or
countenancing them by their pres
ence. 1t is our duty to teach parents
what a serious Judgment they wi /
have TO undergo if they expose their
sons and daughters to the danger of
losing purity and innocence of mind
by allowing them to be thus entrapped
in the snares of Satan.
THE gentle St. Francis advises those
who through unavoidable circum-
Stances are led into the bathrooms. to
} consider that during the time they
are at the ball, innumerab1e souls are
burning in hell for the sins which they
had committed or occasioned by their
I dancing.
''vain and frivolous amusements
} are unworthy of Catholic Christians