There exists a Catholic dress code
.
Not responding to the dress requirements of Holy Scripture, Canon Law, and the Popes of Tradition is certainly at least a venial sin and can be a mortal sin in certain cases.
Mortal sin.
The Roman Catechism teaches that he who commits venial sin without any effort to improve, God will sooner or later let him fall into mortal sin.
Worse still, if by inappropriate dress one seduces another person, it then becomes a mortal sin FOR BOTH. For Our Lord Jesus Christ says:
“But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (St. Matthew 5:28).
If then your servant, being a priest, responsible for some “quasi-parishes”, says nothing on the occasion of public abuses, I am ultimately guilty of unresisted venial sins or of one or another mortal sin.
Therefore I insist for your interest and mine:
It is in no case permitted to wear indecent clothing.
A dress which does not cover the knees when the person is seated, or which reveals, either by slits or by transparency, what modesty does not allow to be shown, that is to say, the legs above the knees, certainly cannot be called decent.
The same must be said of garments, both masculine and feminine, which cling to the shape of the body.
As for necklines and uncovered shoulders, here is what the Cardinal Vicar of Pope Pius XI said:
“A dress whose neckline descends more than two fingers below the neck and which does not cover the arms at least to the elbow, cannot be called decent.”
As we observe today among many an indiscreet tendency towards the lightening of clothing, it is perhaps not useless to recall some principles of ethics on this subject:
Indecency is a sin, a sin of scandal and an occasion of sin for one’s neighbor, a good part of the responsibility and the punishment for which is to be attributed to him who is the cause of it.
In addition to these general rules, visiting a church requires clothing corresponding to the holiness of the place.
As a general rule, clothing must conceal the forms of the body instead of seeking to highlight it. Only then can it be called “decent”. Therefore excluded for women is the wearing of trousers, or culottes and the like.
And finally two other principles:
“Every woman praying … with her head not covered, dishonoureth her head.” (1 Corinthians 11:5).
Women as well as men must have their arms covered in church, even if it is hot.
Explanations:
Our Lady at Fatima said to Sister Lucy: “There will come fashions which will offend much My Divine Son.”
The current fashions show us how much her prophecy is being fulfilled, for they lead to sins, and to grave sins, alas, already by thoughts and evil desires which they provoke.
I repeat it, against these desires, Christ solemnly warns us in the Gospel: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (St. Matthew 5:28).
We read, in the life of Saint Frances of Rome:
a vision which she had of hell in the year 1414 and which lasted four hours: God wished to show her certain ladies whom she had known in Roman society. For what faults were they damned?
For guilty desires, although not followed by effect;
For indecent attire, which followed the fashion of that time, cause of seduction and of sin:
For dances which the world declares harmless.
This vision of hell marked Saint Frances so much that she had it painted on the walls of her chapel as a perpetual reminder of the judgments of the Lord. And afterwards, God gave her the mission of withdrawing Roman ladies from their luxury and vanity.
Our society is much worse than that of Rome at the Renaissance. What is to be done so as not to yield to the ambient corruption, particularly by clothing?
Let us recall here some Catholic principles which notably guided Father Emmanuel of Mesnil-Saint-Loup (who died in the odor of sanctity) to restore Christian society in his parish.
Christianity is stable and solid only insofar as it penetrates the integrity of the baptized person. Thus Christianity must first penetrate the interior of man. By renewing him in the image of Jesus Christ, it arrives at regulating the exterior itself: acts, words, attitude, according to this same image. It is not enough, St. Paul tells us, to “believe with the heart”; if one wishes to be saved, one must also “confess with the mouth”, and this exterior confession of the faith must extend to all gestures, to all steps, to all habits and relations of the Christian. One understands thereby the importance of the practice of Christian modesty among women. A vain woman lies to the commitments of her baptism; a woman who seeks to attract upon herself the gazes of men shows thereby that she has no care to please Jesus Christ.
By Holy Communion, Our Lord takes possession of our whole being, so that the soul remains submissive to Him by humility and that the body itself is subjected by restraint and modesty. Whence it follows that a person who goes to Holy Communion must stand out, even exteriorly, from a person who does not communicate.
In a word, modesty for a woman is the sign of the indwelling of Jesus Christ in her heart; it is the perfume of edification which she is called to spread.
Modesty in dress is therefore an indispensable means of rendering souls more attentive to the obligations contracted at baptism. It is a consequence of this dogma of our faith: the soul of the baptized is inhabited by the Holy Trinity, his body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Saint Paul, infallibly inspired, teaches us:
“Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? … Glorify and bear God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
The current fashion, on the contrary, dishonors and corrupts the Christian woman. It is made to seduce, to excite concupiscence, to the detriment of spiritual beauty which is the true end of our life. It is a Masonic enterprise. The destruction of Christian society, at which the lodges have been working for more than two centuries, passes among other things through the ruin of modesty among the baptized. This willed, programmed corruption is realized methodically.
As a general rule, clothing must conceal the forms of the body instead of seeking to highlight it. Only then can it be called “decent”. Therefore excluded for women is the wearing of trousers, or culottes… which moreover are masculine garments.
God gives us through Moses a dress principle (Deuteronomy 22:5):
“A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord thy God.”
Feminine clothing on the contrary is a skirt or a dress which must cover the knees when the woman is seated, otherwise she scandalizes the person who finds himself seated in front of her.
The decency of clothing is not to be respected only on Sunday at the hour of Mass; it is indispensable for all the days of the week.
The principle of action here is not to tell oneself that trousers, culottes, etc., are more comfortable, but rather to do the will of God by “loving Him in all things and above all things” (Collect of the 6th Sunday after Pentecost). In particular for assistance at Mass, one must watch even more over the decency of clothing.
The woman must have her head covered when she prays, let us see the motives:
Holy Scripture:
“Every woman praying … with her head not covered, dishonoureth her head.” (1 Corinthians 11:5).
The Popes: thus have the Popes always taught.
Canon Law: Saint Pius X had this rule placed in Canon Law (can. 1262).
It is a sign of submission to God, of humility which attracts the blessings of God. It is not something indifferent. An exterior sign is never something indifferent; as it emanates from the person herself, it also says who this person is.
Women as well as men must have their arms covered in church, even if it is hot.
Here is a mortification which we can offer to Our Lord who suffered in His body to redeem us. Let us also know how to do penance to imitate Him.
It is necessary to hold to these rules, of which we recall only the essential, without human respect, and particularly now.
“For, as Dom Bernard Maréchaux said, the evil of the day is this:
‘The line of demarcation tends more and more to be effaced between Christians and non-Christians, between Christians and heretics and even idolaters. The cancer of liberalism attacks all and it always risks reaching us. Those who still call themselves Catholics live too often like those who have renounced this title. The so-called practicing women wear the same clothing as the non-practicing, they have the same readings, the same reviews, frequent the same spectacles, often immoral. They no longer pray and no longer do penance. It is confusion in worldliness and license.’
‘By consequence of these morals, the Church tends to dissolve in the world, Christendom declines in humanity. One finds all too rarely Catholics to whom one can apply the words of St. Paul: ‘Be sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a depraved and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.’ (Philippians 2:15).”
“The first Christians, by their conduct, stood out from the pagans like lights on a dark background, and the spectacle of their courage and their virtue powerfully attracted the idolaters to the faith. This is what is not seen today, except for too rare exceptions. All is confounded in the same laxity.”
Pope Saint Pius XII said nothing else when he addressed Catholic young girls to combat the same liberalism already during the war (Allocution of 22 May 1941 to the young girls of Catholic Action of Rome, members of the Crusade of Purity):
“Many believing women and even pious ones, by agreeing to follow such or such an audacious fashion, cause to fall by their example the last hesitations which retain a crowd of their sisters far from this fashion which may become for them a cause of spiritual ruin. As long as certain provocative toilettes remain the sad privilege of women of doubtful reputation and as the sign by which they are recognized, one will not dare to adopt them for oneself. But the day when these toilettes appear worn by persons above all suspicion, one will no longer hesitate to follow the current, a current which will perhaps drag one to the worst falls.”
It is indeed to a crusade for purity that Pius XII called Catholics. This good example is a great act of charity.
What an apostolate visibly blessed by God as one sees in the ministry of the priests of Campos (Brazil) who listened to the voice of their bishop, Mgr. de Castro-Mayer!
Although it is very hot there, as in the Antilles, one can recognize in the street the faithful of Tradition because of the modesty of their clothing.
Let us recall on this subject the so important role of Christian mothers in the education of children, of their daughters in particular, to inculcate in them, from their earliest years, the sense and the love of Christian modesty.
“Man is lost by woman, he is saved by woman,”
said a preacher one day, “This one (Eve) loses man by the display of her vanity, she (Mary) will save him by the virtue of her modesty: the moral world oscillates between Eve and Mary. As long as Christian modesty is not practiced, society will not rise again.”
May devotion to the Holy Family help us in this “crusade” for purity!
Our Lady of Holy Hope, convert us!
Sites for the sale of decent clothing online:
Online boutiques and clothing brands
In most stores one must look a little for what is suitable, namely knees covered as in the seated position, not everything they propose is good:
Etsy.com. Lithuanian clothing brand. Simplicity, classic. See also https://nl.pinterest.com/christipedia/bare-kleding/son-de-flor/
Hériter – American clothing company.
Ada Faye Clothing – American creator and boutique.
Lys of the Field – Clothing company belonging to the Miller family, which designs and manufactures its own modest clothing.
Ringger Clothing – American clothing company.
Shabby Apple – American clothing brand.
DMFashion (DM = Divine Modesty), fashion boutique.
BestTailor, online boutique on Etsy.com.
AllTheBeautifulLinen, small online boutique on Etsy.com. Classic.
LittleWomenAtelier, small online boutique on Etsy.com and on LittleWomenAtelier.com. Classic, Victorian, linen.
Linennaive, online boutique on Etsy.com. Many dresses.
Camellia Tune – Online boutique on Etsy.com. Fluid, comfortable, much linen. Chinese creator.
FantasyLinen – Chinese.
Graines de pomme – Appleseeds.blair.com. Classic and “fresh”.
Cotswold Collections – CotswoldCollections.com. Classic, rural.
House of Bruar – HouseOfBruar.com. Scottish, rural.
Bless the Fashion – BlessFasion.com.pe. Christian, South American.
Tugba – Tugbavenn.com. Turkish.
Russian:
Baryshnya – Baryshnya.com. Chic-classic.
Miryanka – Miryanka.ru.
Xenyushka – Ksenyushka.ru. Russian brand of women’s clothing.
Grace à Vous – Graceavous.com. Russian.
Sanabis – https://www.livemaster.ru/sanabis
Iranian:
Iranian clothing brand. No online boutique (in 2015). Surprising designs. See https://www.facebook.com/Anargol/
Indian:
InduBindu – https://www.indubindu.com. India.
Rustorange – www.rustorange.com. India.