he Cafeteria is Closed blog brought the following to our attention: In the December 20, 2007, issue of The Evangelist, the official publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, NY, an article entitled “Dancers Enliven Liturgy” appeared:

As part of the annual Family Christmas Eve liturgy at St. Mary’s Church in Oneonta, liturgical dancers will dance to a Nativity carol. The feature has been a part of the Mass for 12 years, said Michelle Gardner, coordinator for liturgical dance at the Otsego County parish. She has taught dancing for more than 25 years at area colleges and high schools. …

Liturgical dance is a simple, uncomplicated form of movement, Mrs. Gardner said, with actions that are a form of prayer. “The dance is meant to draw the worship community into the prayer,” she explained, “not to merely observe what the dancers are doing. The dancers are trained in certain movements that serve to invite the entire community into praise and worship.”

“The feedback was, ‘This is a great way to pray.’ The community was very excited about it,” she said. …

“Now, each year, college students who were liturgical dancers in high school and who are home for the holidays participate in the Christmas Eve Mass,” she said. “They’ve danced at Confirmations and monthly youth ministry Masses as well as other church functions, but the Christmas Eve Mass has become a tradition at St. Mary’s.”

In May 2006, Karl Keeting of Catholic Answers brought a similar sacrilege to our attention:

Click here to see images and here for video.
[This video] was [recorded on] April 2 at the concluding Mass of the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. The chief celebrant was Roger Cardinal Mahony. Total attendance at the Congress was 42,000, with 19,000 attending the final day’s liturgies.

Music at the concluding Mass was provided by what organizers called a “band”: pianos, percussion instruments, guitars, electric bass, synthesizers–altogether 40 instrumentalists, plus a choir of 225. The director of music for the Congress, John Flaherty, said “we’ve worked diligently to inculturate the liturgy to accurately and authentically reflect the church of Los Angeles.”

Inculturation has come at a high price.

When you watch the liturgical dancers, you will shake your head over the lack of good taste. You will not mistake these folks for the June Taylor Dancers. Even if you make allowances for the dancers being amateurs, the video is painful to watch. The dancers are predominantly women, but there are a few men. The women wear floor-length dresses that billow out as they move. The men wear slacks and sport shirts. They all hold something in their hands — perhaps votive candles, it being hard to tell because the videographer sat far from the action. The dancers swirl clockwise, lifting their hands high over their heads, first to the left and then to the right. Then they swirl in the other direction. Since their hands are occupied, there are few variations in their arm motions: stretch high to one side, then to the other, then bow low and bring the hands close to the floor, then do it all over again.

The footwork is simple, not even to the level of a three-step. Still, it is too much for some of the dancers. One of the men, although moving slowly, manages to trip over his own feet and almost falls to the ground.

Only a heartless viewer would not feel embarrassment on behalf of the dancers. Only someone with no appreciation for either liturgy or dancing would think that this was a successful melding of the two.

Mr. Keeting continues to describe how unorthodox this ‘novelty’ mass is. He doesn’t comment on the theatrical reading of the Gospel (like parts in a play), devoid of dignity and respect. Nor does he mention the amphitheatre-like seating, the stage-like placement of the Celebrant, the ‘catwalk,’ for lack of a better term, for the dancers to parade upon, the New-Age aura that pervades everything…. But he does provide ample argument for how incompatible the dancing is with orthodoxy.

According to our present Pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his The Spirit of the Liturgy:

Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt by certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. … 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.…

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. Whenever 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. …

I myself have experienced the replacing of the penitential rite by a dance performance, which, needless to say, received a round of applause. Could there be anything further removed from true penitence? …

None of the Christian rites includes dancing. What people call dancing in the Ethiopian rite or the Zairean form of the Roman liturgy is in fact a rhythmically ordered procession, very much in keeping with the dignity of the occasion.

These sentiments were echoed by Cardinal Arinze:

There has never been a document from our Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments saying that dance is approved in the Mass.

The question of dance is difficult and delicate. However, it is good to know that the tradition of the Latin Church has not known the dance. It is something that people are introducing in the last ten years — or twenty years. It was not always so.

Now, some priests and lay people think that Mass is never complete without dance. The difficulty is this: We come to Mass primarily to adore God — what we call the vertical dimension. We do not come to Mass to entertain one another. That’s not the purpose of Mass. The parish hall is for that.

Why make the people of God suffer so much? Haven’t we enough problems already? Only Sunday, one hour, they come to adore God. And you bring a dance! Are you so poor you have nothing else to bring us? Shame on you! That’s how I feel about it.

Somebody can say, “but the pope visited this county and the people danced”. A moment: Did the pope arrange it? Poor Holy Father — he comes, the people arranged. He does not know what they arranged. And somebody introduces something funny — is the pope responsible for that? Does that mean it is now approved? Did they put in on the table of the Congregation for Divine Worship? We would throw it out! If people want to dance, they know where to go.

The saddest part about when a performance intrudes into the Mass is that such a thing gets printed in the official Diocesan publication as a good thing that “enlivens” and improves the Mass.

Anathema!

Related stories:

• Outrage over liturgical dance (New Oxford Review)