Liturgical Dancing
One of the reasons to avoid the illicit and schismatic Novus Ordo Mass
"Ambrose up in Milan witnessed his congregation dancing during times of worship. He was shocked. Such conduct was pagan. In southern France, the bishop Caesarius [of Arles] castigated "the wretches who dance and caper about before the churches of the saints themselves...and if they appear at church as Christians, yet they leave the church as pagans - for that custom of dancing is still with us from pagan ritual." In the eastern provinces, Bishop Basil reproved the dancers in the very chapels of Caesarea...everywhere we look we find the problem" [Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire: 100-400 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19840, pg. 74-75].
St. Augustine mentions liturgical dancing in his day, but he says it is an abuse that crept in from paganism; the Synod of Laodicea (365) discouraged Christians from dancing at wedding liturgies, but to act "as is becoming Christians." Dancing inside Church was also prohibited by the Quinisext Council of 692 as an activity not befitting Christians and having too much in common with pagan extravagance. So, while we see that dancing was sometimes allowed in extra-liturgical circumstances, it was never encouraged within the context of the liturgy itself. The CDW document quoted above echoes this fact: "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." What we have today where men and women dance in the sanctuary during the Mass is utterly foreign to Christian Tradition, in every rite, and has always been opposed whenever someone tried to introduce the custom.
