Dancing Seminarians

There was around 2004 a general chapter meeting of the Dominican Order which included a member doing interpretive dance. An enterprising blogger spliced together still photos of the event to make a motion picture. One wag dubbed it the Domini-Can-Can.
==
Some time in the last couple of years we saw a broadcast of the original film version of West Side Story. What hits you about it is that it was a series of dance performances salted with dialogue and most of the performers they recruited (for the original theatre version and the film version) were first and foremost dancers. You run through capsule biographies of the credited cast and what hits you is the number who died in their early 50s around about 1988.
==
Fr. Shaughnessy offered some time back that one thing that might help clean up the clergy would be a restoration of ascetical practices in formation programs and a general expectation that such things be followed in the lives of priests. An interest in dance, Broadway, and decorative arts are red flags.

Cardinal Tagle from the Philippines singing Imagine

https://youtube.com/shorts/0Ff5wg8-zaI?si=h2Z3XZORWLRnON5i

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky.

My wife and her entire family are from the Philippines. Catechesis over there is horrible. My step-daughter and her husband know virtually nothing about the Sacraments, the Bible, etc. The overwhelming majority of the Filipino community here in the greater Charelotte area is as abysmally ignorant as the typical American Catholic. The only exception are those who became Baptists: at least they know the Bible.

You can try to explain the Sacraments, the Bible, etc., to them, but they won’t understand, and nine times out of ten, they simply listen but turn you off inside their heads. They’ll pray the Rosary with you, but only as rote memorization. They don’t know what the Mysteries signify or where to find them in the Bible. And that’s true of too many American Catholics. I can say, “Go to Confession before Communion,” and stuff like that, but it all falls on deaf ears. Filipinos are not mean or hateful, and they aren’t liberal either. It’s just that the entire culture is all about feelings and partying and bonding and being happy. It’s always about the next feel-good, get-together party. And no, there isn’t any drunkenness though there may be some drinking. It’s just the way their culture is, and why they never had an alphabet or any civilization before the Spanish arrived. While there are always exceptions, you can’t change them. They got the conveniences of technology from the West, but while they are great imitators and wonderful workers, they don’t know how to do it themselves.

LQC-
(If I correctly recall, you have an inside track on the Phillipine culture. I could be misremembering.)

However, I’ll give you two encouraging anecdotes. If they are merely exceptions that prove the rule, so be it.

During the viral lockdowns, when churches were closed but liquor stores open, there was a shrine that was not under the jurisdiction of the bishop. The priest there continued to say an outdoor Mass despite concerns that the police would one day descend and break things up like a 1920s speakeas. The choir there was exclusively Filipino and there were a fair number in the pews risking police harassment as well.

More to your point, though, is a priest who was our associate pastor for a few years. He was born and raised in the Philippines and had nuclear family there. Despite the fact that his family *disowned him and left him to live on the streets* he sent them part of his earnings and tried to reconcile with them. He was no slouch in the homily or at the altar either.

One of the good solid priests of our day. May God bless him!

Thank you Ezabelle and LQC for helping me to understand. God bless you both.

Hmmm….. seems like not too many weeks ago, we were enthralled by Filipino seminarians who were singing and dancing as a group at their dorm.
This one includes choreography and movement about a “stage”. So, …a vaudeville act outdoors. …Looks like a snippet of something my college show choir would’ve done, to be honest. It’s obviously not happening during Mass or praying the Office. Then too, I recall enjoying a video once of two priests who performed a tap dance, probably sometime in the 30’s or 40’s. I’ve seen far worse.
..I would prefer something of an American country/gospel sort, yet that wouldn’t make much sense in the Philippines. ..This may be the current Filipino version of my country/ gospel entertainment favorites.