Dress Must Stress Moral Beauty

Dress Must Stress Moral Beauty 

SOURCE

We continue to bring to our readers excerpts from an allocution by Pius XII about dress and fashion.

Today, he teaches that dress should stress the moral beauty rather than the physical beauty of the person. He also addresses the stability clothing should have and not change in each season as we see happening in our days.

Pope Pius XII

Independent of the use of dress to hide physical imperfections, youth asks from dress that it highlight the splendor that sings of the joyful springtime of life, and favor – following the norms of modesty – the necessary psychological presuppositions of forming new families [that is, young ladies can wear modest dresses that attract young men in order to marry them].

Mature persons, in their turn, look for an appropriate dress to surround themselves with an aura of dignity, seriousness and serene joy.

In any situation where one seeks to stress the moral beauty of the person, the form of dress must be such that it almost eclipses physical beauty in an austere shadow of modesty that moves attention away from the senses and, instead, concentrates the sight on the spirit. ...

Dress can express joy and mourning, authority and power, pride and simplicity, wealth and poverty, the sacred and the profane. The soundness of its expressive forms relies on the traditions and culture of this or that people, while its mutability should be as slow and stable as the institutions, characteristics and sentiments that the fashions interpret.

Pius XII, Allocution to the International Congress of High Fashion,
November 8, 1957, Petrópolis: Vozes, 1958, pp. 6-7. 

Maria Cahill, "Modesty In The Modern World"  

The Habit and the Monk

Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Note: Prof. Plinio wrote this article in 1956 when some of the clergy were already beginning to adopt looser habits of dress. What would he say now, after Vatican II opened the Church to the modern world, when Bishops, priests and religious rushed to abandon their cassocks and habits? One could apply the same principle in secular life to men who abandoned the clothing that characterize their higher functions to adopt egalitarian casual dress.

The lack of understanding about the use of the cassock for priests and religious seems to be accentuated in our days. The wisdom of the Holy Church, however, does not fail. And her preference for the cassock is inescapable. 

Videos of the Day- Modesty, How We Dress Is How We Are

Videos of the Day- Modesty, How We Dress Is How We Are

Our Lady at Fatima warned of the godless dress in our days.  The women especially have no sense of modesty whatsoever these days and this is due to self love.

4 Reasons For Modesty...

4 Reasons For Modesty...

The Vine Vigil

 “There are hundreds of girls dying for this position,” the recruiter stated. “We have no interest in hiring picky girls.”

Determined to keep her dignity in tact, she kindly declined his offer to return and hasn’t looked back since.
Sadly, this scenario isn’t uncommon. Being a model is something girls and women idolize today. Young women with “model potential” are willing to do whatever it takes to sign a contract. Even if it means stripping down to nothing.