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You
Are What You Wear
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.,
Ph.D.
REMNANT
COLUMNIST,
When I look back on my
early days as a Catholic, when I briefly attended the new rite, I recall a great
many things that told me something was wrong. High on the list was the way the vast
bulk of the congregation was dressed.
Many of them may as well have been sitting in the stands at the
This phenomenon is by no means confined to the Catholic Church; a revenge
of the casual has insinuated its way into just about every nook and cranny of
American society. Sad to say, some
faculty members at my college actually show up for their classes dressed in
jeans. Once in a while my students
actually inquire, particularly on hot days, why I consistently wear coat and
tie. I explain to them not only
that such attire is appropriate to my profession but also that I dress the way I
do out of respect for them – to show that I consider imparting knowledge to them
to be rather more significant than, say, digging trenches in my
yard.
I love Joe Sobran’s observation about the film
Miracle on 34th Street. The
There are really two intersecting issues here – modest dress, and
appropriate dress for Mass – of which the former is really my subject. Although nothing immodest can ever be
appropriate for Mass, inappropriate dress is not necessarily immodest. Both problems, however, reflect an
inordinate preoccupation with self: the immodestly dressed person calls
inappropriate attention to himself, while the inappropriately dressed person is
either too lazy or too concerned with his own comfort to show respect for
others. That it is actually
newsworthy when a Novus Ordo priest
instructs his parishioners to dress modestly and to show respect for God is
almost all we need to know about the overall lack of seriousness in the
post-conciliar Church.
Although men, too, are under a moral obligation to dress modestly, the
nature of men makes it unavoidable that the vast majority of cautions regarding
modesty in dress will be directed at women. The intelligent and civilized woman who
dresses modestly reminds those around her that she is a human being, composed of
body and soul, who would rather not be reduced to a mere thing in the
undisciplined imaginations of strange men.
As we all know, there was a time when the Church considered modesty in
dress a matter of great importance.
In the course of my research for my latest book (The Church Confronts Modernity, just
released by Columbia University Press) I came across a news item from around
1910, according to which the Archbishop of Paris was leading a campaign against
immodest fashions in women’s dress.
In 1910! Nearly a century
later, when even self-described “conservatives” like the crazed Ann Coulter
dress in ways that would get them kicked out of a Novus Ordo chapel –
all right, I admit that’s impossible, but you get my drift – the present slate
of bishops would be embarrassed at the very suggestion that they should be doing
or saying anything about it.
The pre-conciliar popes, who could scarcely
have believed the apparel that has become mainstream
today, cautioned about offenses against modesty in their own day. In 1921, Pope Benedict XV spoke of “the
blindness of so many women of every age and condition; made foolish by a desire
to please, they do not see to what degree the indecency of their clothing shocks
every honest man and offends God.”
And while in the past most such women would have blushed at such apparel,
now “it does not suffice for them to exhibit them on the public thoroughfares;
they do not fear to cross the threshold of churches, to assist at the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seducing food of shameful passions
to the Eucharistic Table, where one receives the heavenly Author of
purity.”
Likewise, Pope Pius XII declared:
The good of our soul is
more important than that of our body; and we have to prefer the spiritual
welfare of our neighbor to our bodily comforts. If a certain kind of dress constitutes a
grave and proximate occasion of sin, and endangers the salvation of your soul
and others, it is your duty to give it up.
O Christian mothers, if you knew what a future of anxieties and perils,
of ill-guarded shame you prepare for your sons and daughters, imprudently
getting them accustomed to live scantily dressed and making them lose the sense
of modesty, you would be ashamed of yourselves and you would dread the harm you
are making of yourselves, the harm which you are causing these children, whom
Heaven has entrusted to you to be brought up as
Christians.
Modest and appropriate attire point to realities beyond themselves. The person who is modest in dress
defeats his own purpose if he should be vulgar and offensive in speech. Modesty involves a
recognition of and an instinct for what is appropriate and what is not,
what is fitting and what is not. No
one could be described as modest, for example, who spoke openly and loudly at a
dinner party about the most intimate details of his married
life.
This aspect of modesty has a particular significance for the clergy. In an age like ours in which moral
corruption is so overwhelming, the temptation is very great for priests to
address sensitive moral issues from the pulpit. If the priest should wish to make
mention of specific examples of violations of the Sixth Commandment, he must do
so in a way that preserves the innocence of the young people in the
congregation. There are ways of
doing so, of course, involving phrases and language too technical to be
understood by anyone but adults.
The problem comes when delicate subjects – indeed subjects that could not
have been mentioned on television half a century ago, much less spoken of in the
presence of the Blessed Sacrament – are mentioned in sermons without recourse to
euphemism or other prudent safeguards.
In my opinion, it is never appropriate for the subject of homosexuality –
or even the word homosexual – to be
raised from the pulpit. Nothing
that comes from the mouth of a priest should be a source of embarrassment for
parents. We can never permit the
degeneracy of the age to corrupt our own standards of what is and is not
acceptable. Certainly we must fight
against wickedness in all its forms, but there is a time and a place for
everything, and holy Mass is surely not the time to call such things as these to
mind.
Likewise, I have been told of cases in which a sin that moralists used to
refer to discreetly as “solitary vice” is being frankly discussed from the
pulpit. That such references
constitute egregious lapses in judgment should be obvious. Thanks be to God, some of our children
have managed to live their lives without ever hearing such language, or learning
what these kinds of words mean.
What a terrible irony it would be if their curiosity should be aroused
precisely by a sermon against such
things, spoken by a well-meaning priest.
Some will say that the issues we have raised here are mere trifles,
hardly worth the time consumed in discussing them. But there is nothing wrong with paying
due attention to matters that in the grand scheme of things – compared, say, to
the need to restore the traditional rite of Mass – may occupy a lower tier of
importance. St. Therese of Lisieux was the saint of little things, finding her way to
heaven by her persistent pursuit of perfection in even the smallest aspects of
her station in life. St. Teresa of
In fact, these little things really aren’t so little, for they point to
things that are very great indeed.
In our day, to dress modestly is to dissent, boldly and courageously,
from a culture that seems obsessed with finding out what happens when base
desires are excited at every opportunity.
When we dress well for Mass, we acknowledge our subordinate place, behind
God and the angels, in the hierarchy of creation. Unlike the adolescent who considers
himself the center of the universe, we are capable of showing honor and respect
for something greater than ourselves.
No matter how otherwise pious he may be, someone
who consistently dresses casually in the presence of God, and particularly at
the Holy Sacrifice, remains frozen in a state of spiritual
adolescence.
Modesty is an unfashionable virtue these days, with most people managing
to get through life without hearing so much as a word about it. But it is precisely at a time when no
one talks about modesty any longer that we must emphasize it the
most.