Karl Keating on Liturgical Dance....

...Or as known at The Curt Jester , "Leotardation", or as renamed by some local St. Louis parishes and others..."Danced Prayer".

On the Karl's E-Letter:

FRED AND GINGER, CALL YOUR OFFICE

Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:

...If you have thirteen free minutes, watch this video:
LA-REC Liturgical Dance Video

Here are some shots:

It [the video] was taken 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.

"Liturgical" Dance (Leotardation, Danced Prayer) is not allowed in the Mass whatsoever. What does the Church say about this?

The document Dance In The Liturgy contains the explanation. In summary, it states:

"[In western culture] 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."

The Bishops also have expressly prohibited any and all forms of dancing in the Liturgy and this directive has NOT been changed. From the NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS (BISHOPS' COMMITTEE on the LITURGY) NEWSLETTER. April/May 1982:

"FROM THESE DIRECTIVES, from the NATIONAL CONFERENCE of CATHOLIC BISHOPS, all dancing, (ballet, children's gesture as dancing, the clown liturgy) are not permitted to be 'introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever.'"

Karl quotes from Cardinal Ratzinger's "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."

Those from Gnostic-Docetic circles tried to introduce it, eh? Don't we have the similar "Gnostics" today atempting and doing the same thing? Yeah, I thought so...