Decency in clothing

on Wednesday, 01 August 2001. Posted in Modesty & Chastity

Precise rules

Given in 1938 by H.E. Cardinal Pompili,. Cardinal Vicar of Rome:

"We call to mind that clothing cannot be considered decent, which is opened lower than two fingers' breadths below the base of the neck; of which the sleeves do not reach at least the elbow; and which scarcely reaches below the knees. Also indecent are clothes of transparent fabrics."

May 1946. Letter from all the Bishops of Canada. They repeat the statement of Cardinal Pompili and they add:

"That if we ask in what consists a modest and decent dress for a Christian woman, we will understand that it is one that covers the chest and arms with non-transparent fabrics, which reaches at least half-way up the leg and the cut should be of convenient width to protect maidenly modesty in concealing the lines of the body" (Quebec Synod, 1940, decree 102).

"What will it be tomorrow, if we think of the increasing vogue of these clothes, so scanty or such that they seem rather made to make prominent what they must veil.", as Pius XII remarks.

"Too many young ladies easily accept the indecent shortening, sometimes provoking, the audacious décolleté where they sometimes have the impudence to place the Cross of Our Lord, Master of purity! Too many amongst them present themselves in shorts, yet timidly in the street, but free and easy at sports. Often, they still cut down their bathing suit. Immodest by their very nature, these clothes must be banished from our morals, even in sports.

"Furthermore, let us take note that the wearing of pants on the smallest pretext, or, what is worse, with the purpose of presenting themselves in pubļic, is unworthy of a true Christian woman.

"What appears to us still more serious, not indeed as a provocation to evil, but rather as a pernicious habit and could lead very far, is, in the clothes of young girls, the shortened dress, the complete bareness of the arms and legs, even going as far as baring the chest. Without knowing it, these poor children scandalize in this manner, and often, their young brothers.

"Man himself does not escape from the inclination of exhibiting his flesh: we go in public stripped to the waist, we wear tight pants or a very scanty bathing suit. We commit thereby offenses to the virtue of modesty; even we are an occasion of sin, in thought or in desire, for the neighbour."


The Ten Commandments of God

1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.

2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord  thy God in vain.

3. Remember thou keep holy the Lord's day.

4. Honor thy father and thy mother.

5. Thou shalt not kill.

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

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