“Of course I dance the Tango. I’m Argentine,”
So says Cardinal Bergoglio, while he still a Cardinal and not yet Pope Francis. He then expends considerable energy trying to teach the less than enthusiastic presiding Pope Benedict XV1. His efforts went unappreciated and ineffective. (Netflix movie, “The Two Popes.” An intelligent and engaging watch.)
The question is posed: Does Pope Francis still dance the Tango?
Or perhaps even more to the point: Do we care?
I must confess. I care.
… in a sideways sort of way.
I am not Catholic and don’t feel the need to have the Pope’s blessing on my social life. However, my life has been steeped in church history and dynamics. My wife and I both were employed by the Church at one time (Patricia Catholic, myself Lutheran) and both summarily dismissed when we crossed too many boundaries. (I tell my story in Trauma to Tango: dancing through the shadows, and Patricia in her Masters thesis, Reconnecting Broken Circles.)
The reason I care is that I experience my spiritual life and my dance life as intertwined. My spiritual home is still somewhere within the orbit of the Christian faith, (perhaps a little beyond Pluto, still in this solar system apparently.)
Dance and Christianity
Connecting dance and religion is not automatic in the Christian tradition. I have just finished reading a fascinating book, Dancing on the Earth: Women’s Stories of Healing through Dance, Edited by Johanna Leseho and Sandra McMaster, Findhorn Press. It is full of inspirational accounts of women from various religious and cultural traditions who explore dance as an integral element to their physical and spiritual health. No specifically Christian models. Not surprising. No men either. Not surprising, either.
There are all sorts of variations of Christianity, of course. I am speaking from within my experience and training as a Baptist lay minister and then Lutheran Pastor. My personal religious orientation ranged from either disinterest in all matters physical to a general distrust or aversion to anything sensual. My early indoctrination disparaged any activity that indulged the pleasures of the flesh, like dancing or imbibing or Rock and Roll music. Sex, of course, was never referenced directly but was something to be tolerated for the sake of propagation. Not to be enjoyed, certainly. All this stemming from the counsel of St. Paul, who recommended marriage only if one was burning with lust. (Way to go, Paul).
Healthy Sensuality?
I must qualify the above by saying this was exactly the type of constrictive morality that I was seeking at the time. Not to put too fine a point to it, I was coming out of a family of origin which indulged in all manner of perversities and moving into a drug culture (Remember the 60’s?) which also had no constraints and many more mind-bending weapons in their arsenal. I ran to the church as a refuge from a very confusing and hazardous social experiment. Being cloistered seemed to be a more evolved option. At least safer.
What was really missing and needed as a counterpoint, was a healthy model of sensuality. It wasn’t accessible to someone like myself lrecovering from sexual abuse. This takes time. I have been healing and reconstructing my inner self and faith for most of my adult life, minus the time I spent hiding under clerical garb.
Does the Pope still dance?
So back to my original question (above).
My first response is, “Cut the guy some slack!’ I know how difficult it is to even walk in those robes. And I didn’t have to wear a zucchetto.
My hunch was that he doesn’t. To me, there seems to be something just a little incongruous with linking the constrictions of the Papacy with the Tango, typically portrayed as a joyous, unbridled, ecstatic exhibition of sensuality.
Until last week, and then … one of our dance community members returned from Rome. He reported that while there, a milonga was held in honour of the Pope. My friend wasn’t invited, unfortunately, so we can’t be sure of the details, so more intrigue.
Did the Pope attend?
And if he did, did he dance?
And then back to our earlier question: “do we care?”
Maybe, for his sake. Go for it, Pope. Rock those hallowed halls with a little Argentine flair. It could do us all some good.