What People are Commenting
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Concupiscence, Gradualism & Bold Immodesty
Principle of Gradualism
Rita A. Stewart in her excellent article on modesty mentions the dangers of gradualism. How insidious indeed is this evil, a strategy we can be sure emanates from Satan himself. We decriminalized homosexuality and ended up with gay “marriage”. We removed the status of “illegitimacy” and ended up with a society full of bastard children and unmarried mothers. We were lenient on the trans issues and look where we are now, where the very nature of girlhood and womanhood are under attack. We allowed the abolition of spanking in most of our schools and have ended up with the law of the jungle.
So it is with modesty. The mini skirt, which rightly caused such dismay to right thinking people in the 1960s, is quite modest by the standards of today. It has to be said that girls and women are at the forefront of immodest dress. Men have on the whole, remained relatively modest, if very sloppy in their dress. The ridiculous idea of grown men dressing in short pants, like primary schoolboys, has really taken hold however. This may be one of the reasons for the increasing infantilization of men.
What can pious and feminine women do in the face of such attacks on modesty. I believe setting a good example is extremely important. A well dressed woman really stands out today and will be noticed on city streets. If by our example, one immodestly dressed female, questions her style of dress and is impressed by the beauty of the modestly dressed woman, then we have done a good day’s work.
Parents and mothers in particular, dress your daughters in mid calf to ankle length skirts or dresses. Buy them nice cardigans to give extra cover on top and train them to be modest in the house. Training in modesty like all disciplines, must start early. Girls should be particularly modest around their brothers. Certain types of play are not for girls, if they cause dresses or skirts to be raised and undergarments seen. There is little point in stressing the need for modesty outside the home, if the same rules are not enforced in the home.
Above all let us redouble our prayers to Mary Immaculate, our model for modesty and all the virtues and behaviors appropriate to ladies.
Yours faithfully,
C.P., Ireland
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Absence of Shame & Modesty This Summer
Having just read your excellent article on Modesty about the gradual erosion of women's fashions, which sadly, the majority of women went along with, I had to write in. Your pictorial accompanying the article does not go far enough.
Regrettably, this Summer of 2023, far from any beaches, here on the ordinary streets of Ohio and in places of business with alarming frequency, I am seeing what seems to be the ultimate degradation of womanhood: women appearing in public in what used to be considered one's intimate underwear. Underwear is now outerwear! Tops and bottoms being worn so tight and low and short as to assault one's very eyes and soul! Not surprising, given the instigator of the rebellion, black is the favored color! It is the wholesale prostitution of women and how few of them realize where their liberation is taking them!
The discarded girdle of times past is now reimagined as the tight black short! To see such lewd images with increasing frequency is physically nauseating! It is disgustingly thrust before us; wantonly displayed without a blush by females of all ages and worn on every imaginable, even grotesque shape. Shame is absent.
I cringe at such sights and invariably think, "I am a woman having this visceral reaction but what is going on in a man's insides? His reaction? How many sins are these people unknowingly causing as they casually go about their day?"
The cry for reparation is unending!
This latest degeneracy makes all the clothing that came before seem modest! What a statement! First we were conditioned to see leggings and they have become "acceptable." Now shorts? What is next?
The offense before God is incalculable.
I love that you included the FULL quote from Our Lady of Fatima! (See my emphasis.) My experience has been that usually only the first line is repeated.
“Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Lord very much,” she said. “Those who serve God should not follow these fashions. The Church has no fashions; Our Lord is always the same.”
God bless you for your desire to please Our Blessed Lord and His Most Holy Mother with these warnings and instructions. I pray many share your worthwhile articles so that your readership may increase.
With much appreciation,
Dr. E.A.Z.
P.S. The images I found were from "mainstream" sources. The last image is from an ad by Walmart. It is all on display sadly in neighborhoods near you. In the Walmart image, I was struck by the fact that the identity of the woman, her face, is no longer even important!!
Posted July 20, 2023
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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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Re: Is Modesty in Dress for Women Relative?
This was something that I tried to communicate to a popular otherwise orthodox woman. The example that she used was that dresses in centuries past were low cut and so on. It was a cultural norm.
I wish to make it clear that she did not advocate the horrible immodesty in clothing. However, she did use it to strengthen her argument about dress codes.
My answer is: Concupiscence is concupiscence, and just because it was the cultural norm then and now does not take away our fallen humanity, our fallen desire for beauty [a desire good in and of itself], or fallen desire for intimacy [a desire good in and of itself].
How one dresses does effect how he acts.
Custody of the eyes is a struggle for many men...
Concupiscence is concupiscence regardless of the cultural norm.
Fr. T.J.H.