Church warnings on The Evils of Dancing and Foul Literature

From the Nenagh Guardian Archives of a century ago, issue dated June 29 1924, comes warnings from a priest and a bishop on the evils of dancing and foul literature......

Speaking at Mass at Effin, Co Limerick, Rev. Father R. Fitzgerald, P.P., said his attention had been drawn to certain outdoor dances. He warned fathers and mothers to keep their children away. He might be asked why he didn’t object to the dances in farmers’ houses. He would point out that the young people who participated in these were under the observation of their parents.

The dances held at the pumps and at the crossroads were immoral dances, and the people who attended them were following in the wake of Satan.

They were far different from the outdoor dances of long ago, when their fathers and mothers danced gigs and reels. The present day dances led to company-keeping and impurity. They had the girl approaching the priest and asking for the Sacrament of Matrimony in her disgraced condition. He warned the young men and young women to shun these dances if they had respect for themselves and believed in the salvation of their souls.

FOUL REPORTS

Most Rev. Dr Hackett, Bishop of Waterford, administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to upwards of 300 children in Dungarvan on Sunday. The Bishop delivered an address in which he said he had the report from the diocesan inspector, and it was very favourable.

The Bishop spoke of the foul literature coming to the town. For this he blamed the people who bought these papers that gave accounts of divorce cases, and he did not blame the people who sold them so much as the people who bought them. They had trouble in the past, but everything seemed to be better now, and if they divided politically, they would still be divided as Catholics, for the Church was one.