Women can wear trousers to church. The last time I checked, the bible did not say no ....

You know the Church burned to death Joan of Arc for wearing pants. ...

Should Christian women wear pants?

Question: "Should Christian women wear pants?"

Answer: The question about whether Christian women should wear pants or slacks is an
issue that is raised about externals when the life of the child of God should rather be
about a spiritual relationship based upon our position in Christ as believers. The
obedience of a child of God is not measured by what clothing we wear but by our walk in
the Spirit (Galatians 5:16).

When looking at “doubtful things," we need to use Scripture in context for the principles
that will help us walk as believers, which means considering the dispensation and the
whole counsel of God and not taking passages out of context. There is a passage in the
Old Testament that speaks about a woman wearing men's clothing: "A woman must not
wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the LORD your God detests
anyone who does this" (Deuteronomy 22:5). The context of this passage is the second
giving of the law to the nation of Israel as they were poised to enter the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 22:5 is an admonition not to live as a transvestite. This has to do with more
than just clothing; it also speaks of a life that emulates in every way those of the opposite
sex. Transvestitism was a practice of the Canaanites, and Israel was to consider it an
abomination. We take a principle from this and apply it to our lives as believers, but we
must use it in the context in which it is given and do so in relation to the dispensation of
grace.

The Apostle Paul wrote extensively on the difference between the law and grace in
Romans. We are not justified by our adherence to the law, but we are justified by faith in
Christ (Romans 3:21-28). The believer in Christ Jesus is "dead" to the constraints of the
law. "But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so
that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code"
(Romans 7:6). Therefore, a believer does not live by legalism, nor by license, but rather
by grace.

What has that to do with a believing woman wearing pants? There is no biblical law that
says what a woman should wear or not wear. Rather, the issue is one of modesty. Paul
addresses the modesty of women in his first letter to Timothy. "I also want women to
dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or
expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship
God" (1 Timothy 2:9-10). The Greek word translated "modest" is the Greek word
kosmios, which is translated twice in the New Testament, once as "modest" in this
passage and once as "of good behavior" in 1 Timothy 3:1. It came to mean "well-
arranged, seemly, and modest."

The word clothes is the Greek word katastole. The meaning of the word was "to send or
to let down or lower." It was primarily a garment that was let down and in that day
referred to a stole or a loose outer garment worn by kings and persons of rank. Since we
know that Paul was not speaking to people of rank, the context here is simply modest
attire, and it does not specify what that entails. Paul addressed this issue here because the
women in the church were trying to outdo each other in how they dressed, and the
flashier the better. They were losing sight of the things that should adorn a godly woman
—humility, sobriety, godliness, and good works. The words "dress modestly" are not
used here in the context of specific garments, but rather to being clad in a modest
covering. It should not be used to prove a prohibition against wearing pants (also see 1
Peter 3:3-4).

So, the issue is that a woman should wear modest clothing. Whether or not that includes a
pair of slacks should be a matter for the woman's own conscience before the LORD. If a
woman allows her outward appearance to be the measure of her inward relationship with
Christ, she is living under the constraints of legalism. Born-again women are free in
Christ to wear whatever modest apparel they choose, and the only judgment they should
be under is that of their own conscience. "Everything that does not come from faith is
sin" (Romans 14:23). We are not to allow our consciences to be dictated to by legalism
and the consciences of others, but by our own relationship with Christ. "I have been
crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the
body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me"
(Galatians 2:20). God will take care of the outward woman if we walk in obedience in the
inward woman.
Among the many issues over which Christians are in sharp disagreement today is that of
women wearing trousers to church. While some of them object to women wearing it to
church, or wearing it at all, not a few see opposition to it as a misunderstanding and a
cultural bias against women. SEGUN OTOKITI and TAYO SALAMI look at the
disagreement and various positions people take on the matter.

In the world today, some believers say it’s a sin for Christian women to wear trousers at
all, and particularly to Church. Their belief is hinged on Deuteronomy 22:5, which says,
“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a
woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God”.

But what is the true meaning of this Scripture? What was its significance to those in the
Old Testament – the children of Israel precisely? And how relevant is it to the new
creation in Christ? Or is it relevant at all? All these are questions that have dominated
discuss among believers and non-believers over the rightness or otherwise of women
wearing trousers.

Sharing his view on the matter, a Catholic Priest, Randon Klenky said people, many a
time, major on minor issues and vice versa, but that Christians owe the responsibility to
get the truth of God’s Word to many, and to bring them out of bondage, that they may
serve Christ in the liberty of the Spirit.

According to him, the ancient Egyptians were afflicted with plagues of various kinds -
blood, frogs, lice, beasts, cattle, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness - each one more deadly
than the one before, but the last and worst has been reserved for our times: a plague of
legs. “They get everywhere now that women have adopted the trouser culture. Once not
considered in keeping with dressing propriety, everywhere in the Western world trousers
on women now predominate. If you walk down the street of any city or town, the
proportion of women wearing trousers to skirts is something like 10:1. The fashion has
become so institutionalized that some women can be said to ‘live in trousers’,” Klenky
observed.

He argued that for nearly 6,000 years, women always wore long dresses, but only since
the last 40 years, a dress is suddenly “impractical” to wear. “Formerly, women performed
a wide variety of jobs, including farming, in skirts. Nowadays, they can’t so much as rake
a few leaves in the garden without feeling the need to put on a pair of pants”, he stated.

Also to proponents of moral consensus, feminine modesty has been understood as being
distinctive from its male counterpart in every society since the dawn of history, even in
places where God’s word has never reached. St Thomas Aquinas holds that the behaviour
of all is subject to moral judgement, whether or not they know of the Revelation of
Christianity.

They argued that women have never, in the entire history of civilization, in any era from
earliest antiquity or in any part of the world until these times, stalked about in trousers
that delineated the lower half of their body and gave visual prominence to their hips and
legs. Why not? “Because they had the good sense to realise their physical vulnerability as
the ‘weaker vessel’ vis-à-vis male readiness to exploit it, and besides, they wanted to be
cherished and respected for their personal qualities other than their physical endowments.
The fundamental issue is that a bifurcated garment worn as outer attire was considered by
people of all civilizations, even the most barbarian and pagan, to infringe basic levels of
feminine decency and identity”, they reasoned.

Moralists also argued that from their knowledge of the Gospels in which the Lord
demanded purity in glances, thoughts, desires and actions and warned against giving
scandal, Christians generally understood that immodesty is related to lust and causes
temptation to others. And so a moral conscience was formed which told them that
immodesty, particularly in a woman because of her nature as the temptress of man,
involves an offence against God and a lack of respect for ourselves and our neighbour.
Not to disapprove of trousers for women is to shrug aside the seriousness of the situation.

In non-Christian countries such as India and parts of the Far East, where women wore
trousers, they took care to cover them amply with a flowing robe or a long tunic that
concealed the outline of their body below the waist.

Among Eskimo women and those who inhabited the Polar region there was a tradition of
wearing long dresses made of hide or an ensemble consisting of seal skin leggings worn
under a poncho-style garment that descended well below the knees. Whether they were
the early Celts or Vikings or the women of the tribe of Attila the Hun who swept down
from the Steppes of Central Asia, there is no recorded case of a fashion for women to
wear trousers as an outer garment until the 20th century.
The coming of women in trousers. In the eighteenth century, the Empress Elizabeth of
Russia known as the “Merry Tsarina” organised costume balls in which she regularly
required that women dress as men and vice versa. Trousers were indeed worn by women
as part of a fancy dress costume but they were only partly visible under shortened skirts,
and their use was restricted only to a frivolous occasion.

During the Napoleonic era and in the American War of Independence there were women
volunteers called “vivandieres” and “cantinieres” who wore trousers as part of the
military uniform. These were the “filles du régiment”, wives, mothers and daughters who
followed their men to war to share the dangers of battle and the hardships of life in the
camps. They braved the bullets to administer sustenance to the soldiers and tend the
wounded. The important feature of their uniform was that all wore calf-length dresses
over trousers or baggy “Zouave” (Turkish-style) pantaloons.

Moralists of all denominations raged throughout the Victorian era against the emergent
fashion of trousers on women. Amelia Bloomer gave her name to a revolutionary style of
dressing, but even her ‘shocking’ innovation (1851) that sent ripples of indignation
through polite society and drew fiery condemnations from every pulpit, came with a mid-
length skirt worn over billowy pantaloons that were tied at the ankle.

There is no doubt that from Victorian times women wearing trousers were considered
both immodest and unfeminine. The early feminists who wore trousers were often
lampooned in the press in their attempt to ape manliness. A common criticism was that
trousers gave a woman “an extremely mannish look”.

Here is what G.K. Chesterton thought about women wearing trousers: “And since we are
talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the
idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the
rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it
was common for an “advanced” woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about
as GROTESQUE as the right to wear a false nose...It is quite certain that the skirt means
female dignity.”

This commentary was written in 1910 when the custom was in its infancy; it may be a
century old, but it is even more relevant in our times than it was in Chesterton’s.

Besides, all dictionaries up to the early 20th century defined “trousers” as “a garment
worn by males.” This identification of trousers as a male garment did not change until the
60s after women began to liberate their legs publicly in the 50s, thus altering the public
perception. In wartime, women workers in munitions factories wore dungarees under
overalls.

It is evident that trousers were historically associated with men, and wherever they were
adopted by women they were subject to ‘purdah’, that is skirted around by cultural
restrictions and limited to specific circumstances. There is thus no recorded history of
women adopting the fashion of wearing trousers like their menfolk until the 20th century.

The coming of women in trousers

In the eighteenth century, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia known as the “Merry
Position of the Catholic Church
If women are “dressing to kill” these days, there is no doubt that they have succeeded in
killing the morals of men and endangering their souls by wearing provocative styles,
particularly midriff-baring tops and how-low-can-you-go jeans. Some women appear to
have been melted down and poured into their garments. A good question to ask oneself
by way of analogy is: “Which outlines the form of the hand more - a mitten or a glove?”
and then apply the question to a skirt and a pair of trousers, both of which provide
adequate coverage. It is obvious that there can be varying degrees of immodesty
depending on the cut of the trousers, but that there is no such thing as ‘modest’ trousers -
they may look modest on the clothes rack, but they behave like any other trousers when
you put them on. The ‘crux’ of the matter, if you get the meaning, is that even if trouser
legs are of generous width and not particularly clinging, the fitted area is bound to offset
the female form to a greater or lesser extent, and its very visibility is what causes an
immodest impression to be fixed in the mind. Any woman who does not agree should
take a long, hard look in the mirror and try to see herself as others (especially men) see
her! Perhaps then she will agree that trousers reveal much more than gender.

The key to the whole issue is for women to dress in a feminine manner so as to
communicate the language of submission and acceptance of womanhood rather than the
language of rebellion and rejection of God’s design. As Christian women, we have a
biblical obligation to dress modestly and reflect holiness, and so we should dress in a
feminine manner, to show that we accept the place God has given us in the Church, in the
family and in society,. God’s message about modesty may seem embarrassingly old-
fashioned in our culture, but God’s word does not change. There are no general
circumstances either in the past or present which mitigate or set aside this teaching.
While it is acceptable to have feminized forms of coats, hats, shoes etc., trousers are in a
category of their own because of the area of the body on which they are worn and their
inherent “suggestiveness”. It will never be right for women to overshadow or displace
traditional Christian teaching by claiming the right to wear trousers.

The women’s trouser culture is one of the most insidious by-products of modern
liberalism, and it is therefore not surprising that all it has promoted is moral frivolity and
exhibitionism, confusion, the debasement of women, a coarsening of attitudes among
women themselves and a lowering of moral tone in society.

We need to rescue the Christian concept of womanhood from modern society’s confusion
over marital duties and family life. In order to maintain standards of decency in dress,
women need the graces that come from frequent prayer. They also need the moral support
of their menfolk: in the first place of the Holy Father, then of the hierarchy, clergy and
religious and also of their husbands. But women have been spiritually short-changed and
woefully let down by the silence of the Magisterium after the Council. However, there is
the other side of the coin: the problem of the unruly wife and the passion with which
some women pursue the ‘right’ to wear trousers. Instead of having a “gentle and quiet
spirit” (1 Pet. 3:4), they frustrate their husband’s attempts to counsel them by continually
usurping his authority in the home. The Magisterium may be silent, but women are vocal!

The plague of legs is a just punishment. Here are some wise words from Fr Gruner:
“God allows us to be punished by the silence of the Magisterium today for the sins of not
obeying the Magisterium when it spoke up: just as God, as punishment, did not send
more prophets to the people of the Old Testament after the people had killed and rejected
many of the prophets He had already sent to them.”

For those who are new to Catholic morality, or who are unaware of what the Church has
taught before the Council, it would be good to cultivate the habit of thinking that if the
Church has preached against women wearing trousers, then somewhere there is a good
case for believing it drawn from Revelation, Tradition or natural reason. They would do
well to heed the teachings of the Society priests as they strive to inculcate a spirit of
purity and awaken a sense of the angelic virtue among the young. The result would be
perfectly Catholic: modern ‘Bloomerites’ who still cling doggedly on to the trouser-leg of
feminist culture should stay at home to look after their children and cut their trousers into
strips to make mops.

VOICE FROM RUSSIA

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Vienna and Austria feels it is wrong to give someone’s
external appearance top priority, rather than caring about their spiritual state of mind.
“We can not elevate the wearing of skirts to being an important church doctrine”, he once
said while responding to the questions of radio listeners on a programme broadcast on the
Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei (Russian News Service). Recognizing that there are customs
regarding the proper form of dress at the services, and that this tradition should be
respected whenever possible, he, at the same time, expressed the view, “If a woman
comes to services without a headscarf or in trousers, then, no one, either clergy or laity, is
entitled to blatantly point this up. You can talk with her; you can explain that we in the
Church have a tradition that women come to services with their heads covered”.
But, he noted that this tradition “is not universal”, and, for example, in foreign countries
“it is not only not respected, but, for example, it would be impossible in France to require
a woman to wear a skirt, which means to French women that they must look like
Muslims. In France, women generally do not wear skirts at all, they only wear trousers.
So, should we abandon our French parishioners on the grounds that they do not wear
skirts?” Bishop Hilarion asked.

In his opinion, firstly, we should pay attention to the spiritual state of a person, on why
they came to services and what led them there. “But, we should pay no attention to how
they are dressed and how they appear. There shall be no change in the existing customs
of the Church. But, to be reasonable, the Priest must keep a clear mind, in order to
differentiate the important things from the merely secondary”, Bishop Hilarion
emphasized. In saying this, Vladyki Hilarion remembered an incident from his own
pastoral experience, when a girl came to services “totally confused”, and she said to him,
“You know, I’m very sorry that I came like this, dressed in trousers”. In order to reassure
his parishioner, and put her in a prayerful mood, Bishop Hilarion, who, at that time, was
only a Priest, answered her by saying, “You can take it easy. I also wore trousers to
church”.

When judgmental men have learned to be open, honest and naked before God and man in
all sincerity, honesty and truth, maybe then we can discuss the more trivial question as to
whether or not women should wear pants in Church. To me, it is a far more serious thing
for a person with a beam in their eye to pass judgment on someone with a splinter in their
eye, than it is for a woman to wear pants in Church. I can certainly find a scripture to
judge a person for just about anything they do, but I will not be so foolish. For some
reason I just do not believe that God is so trivial that He concerns himself with women
and their pants, I think He is more concerned about things like the murder of our babies,
Pastors who serve this world and forsake the sheep and Prophets who lie. Just my
opinion.

Proper Clothing for Catholic Women

"A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a
woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your
God." (Deut 22:5).

"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to
abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away,
not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whever then
relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least
in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in
the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:17-19).

Saint Padre Pio use to refuse to hear the confession of women who were wearing pants
or an immodest dress.

Women should not dress or act like men, for this is an abomination in God's eyes. God
created the human race with two genders, intending each to have his and her proper place
in Creation. Men and women are not meant to behave or dress the same manner. Part of
the beauty of the human race is found in the differences between men and women.

We each live within a larger society. We are each influenced by the culture around us.
Yet society and culture often teach us false things, which lead us away from God. Most
women (at least in Western society and culture) dress and act very much like men. They
seek the same roles in society, the family, and the Church. They are following a popular
teaching of our culture today, that women and men are meant to have the same roles, and
especially that women are meant to take up roles formerly held only or mainly by men.
They are displaying their adherence to this teaching by dressing like men. This teaching
of our culture is contrary to the teaching of Christ.

God wants men and women to act and dress according to their gender and the place God
has given each one in Creation. Clothing and hairstyles are expressions of one's thoughts,
behavior, and attitude. Women are not mean to behave like men, nor to have the same
roles as men, therefore they should not dress or groom themselves like men. And vise
versa.

Women should wear skirts and dresses; they should not generally wear pants (although
there may be some exception for certain sports, certain types of work, etc). Women
should have longer hair than men; a woman's hair style should be feminine (not
masculine and not androgenous). Women should dress and groom themselves in a
feminine manner, to show that they accept the place God has given women in Creation,
in society, in the family, and in the Church.

Modesty is a separate issue. A woman wearing modest pants still offends God, not by
lack of modesty, but by dressing like a man. A woman wearing an immodest skirt or
dress offends God less than a woman wearing a modest pair of pants. The offense of a
woman wearing pants is an offense against the very order which God built into Creation
and humanity. The offense of a woman wearing men's clothing is called an abomination
by Sacred Scripture. When a woman dresses and acts like a man, it is an offense against
the very order which God built into Creation and human nature. God is offended, even
more so, when women dress and act like men in churches and during holy Mass.

By comparison, when a woman wears a short skirt, or a tight dress, her offense is only a
matter of degree (the same skirt, if lengthened, might be considered modest). Such an
offense is not intrinsically disordered -- it does not contradict or rebel against the
fundamental order which God gave to Creation and humanity.

But most women, and even most men, do not accept this teaching. They accept the
teachings of their culture and ignore the teachings of Sacred Scripture. When the Church
teaches one thing and their culture teaches another, they follow their culture instead of
Christ.

12 Point Summary:

1. First, male and female clothing was distinct during biblical times. The passage
from Deuteronomy saying that men should not dress like women and women
should not dress like men must have made sense to the Israelites. They lived the
Scriptures before they wrote them down.

2. Second, though men wore robes, women's dresses were distinctly different.

3. Third, during New Testament times, Roman soldiers did wear trousers, so pants
were known and were worn only by men.
4. Fourth, for a very long time in the Church, men wore pants and women did not.
This had become established within Christian culture as one of the main
differences between men's and women's clothing. Only very recently has this
difference been obscured.

5. Fifth, Padre Pio would not even hear the confession of women who wore pants.

6. Sixth, the passage from Deuteronomy specifically forbids unisex clothing. Even if
some persons or many persons in ancient times dressed the same, Scripture is still
true and must still be obeyed.

7. Seventh, when the Virgin Mary appears in apparitions, she is always wearing a
dress, never pants. All of the images and statues of her throughout the history of
the Church present her wearing a dress, never pants.

8. Eighth, when visiting the Pope or the Vatican, women are not permitted to wear
pants. And they must wear a head covering. When George Bush and his wife
Laura visited the Pope recently, she wore a dress and a head covering.

9. Ninth, some Protestant groups still retain this insight, based on Scripture, that
women should dress in a feminine manner, should not wear pants, and should
wear a head covering.

10. Tenth, clothing is an expression of behavior and role. Even in our sinful society,
clothing is still associated with roles, for example: police officers, judges, nurses,
priests, nuns, and others wear particular clothing appropriate to and indicative of
their roles. And one's clothing is also an indicator of behavior and attitude. For
example, nuns who are obedient to the Church like to wear the habit, but those
who are disobedient hate to wear it.

11. Eleventh, men and women are meant to have different roles in the Church, the
family, and society. Men and women are meant to have different behaviors.
Clothing is an indicator and expression of that important difference. So, the more
important thing is the correct roles and behaviors for men and women. That is the
main point of that passage from Scripture.

12. Twelfth, when a woman gives up wearing pants and strives to dress in a manner
pleasing to Christ and Mary, even though the culture around her tells her
otherwise, she will be blessed by God and her prayers will be answered.

Mother Teresa, a model of modesty and womanhood shows by her

life that 'a virtuous life is the best adornment for women' (1 Tim.
2:10). In Rome, on December 4, 1985, she graciously accepted
different issues of The Fatima Crusader and was interested to learn
from Father Gruner the findings of the International Fatima Rosary
Crusade Symposium regarding the urgent need to consecrate
Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Her order is dedicated to
Our Lady's Immaculate Heart.
REMEMBER: Modesty in dress helps safeguard the virtue of purity and is demanded by
the moral law of God. The above norms are based on this unchangeable moral law and on
Christian tradition. Immodest dress is immoral and sinful, and is a matter of confession.
We have reason to believe that many souls are now in hell because of the thoughtlessness
of girls who dress immodestly. Out of love for Christ and His Immaculate Mother, and
for the sake of others who are struggling to be pure, PLEASE DRESS MODESTLY!

The Church's teaching before Vatican II

The Church's teaching on dress is an authority prevailing over every social

tendency and every fashionable choice, because it was to her and not to
society that Christ entrusted the supernatural wisdom to discern what
constitutes a spiritual danger and to fight soul-destroying customs such as
immodest and egalitarian clothing. Many of us are too quick to write off the
Church when it comes to subjects like trousers on women. It is claimed that
the Magisterium has not issued any prohibition on them and that in dubiis
libertas (where a doubt exists freedom should be granted). But this
argument overlooks the fact that it was only in the second half of the 20th
century that women in general began to exchange their skirts for trousers,
and that by the time this fashionable option had become widespread, the
post-Conciliar Church had fallen silent, having already adopted a more
indulgent attitude to the question of modesty in general and the sins of the
flesh in particular. It is hardly to be expected that in their condemnation of
immodest fashions the pre-Conciliar Popes would have given particular
emphasis to a fashion that was rarely seen in public. (Certainly before 1960
it was unheard of for women to wear trousers to church). However, it was
customary before the Council for individual bishops, especially in Catholic
countries such as Ireland, Italy and Latin America, to make statements
regarding the unacceptability of trousers on women.

The Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, John Charles McQuaid

C.S.Sp., was well known for his tirades against women wearing trousers. He
continually denounced women's participation in athletics for reason of dress
in mixed company. For example, in a sermon to a congregation in his native
Cavan, he voiced his opposition to young women rowers being dressed in
men’s scanty athletic attire. There is no doubt that throughout his lengthy
career (he reigned for more than three decades from 1940 to 1972 before
resigning in 1972 in disgust at the reforms of Vatican II and dying, they say,
broken-hearted the following year), the legendary Archbishop McQuaid
exerted an enormous influence on every aspect of Catholic Ireland. It was
common knowledge that Dr McQuaid had a direct influence on University
College Dublin, and this has been confirmed with the recent opening of the
Archbishop's archives. I have a vivid recollection of an incident that
occurred during my university days in Dublin when a foreign female student
wearing trousers was approached by a woman official and asked to leave
the premises because she had infringed the dress code. What would
McQuaid have said about today's trousered women? He would have used up
all his vocabulary, and have had nothing left but tears.
The last official document on the subject was, significantly, issued shortly
before Vatican II. It took the form of a letter by Cardinal Siri of Genoa
warning all the clergy, teaching sisters, those involved in Catholic Action,
and educators in his diocese, of the grave dangers in women wearing
trousers. Written on the 12th June 1960 at a time when Italy was more or
less still a Catholic country, the letter addressed people who still had some
instinctual sensibilities concerning modesty, formed by centuries of Catholic
culture. Its very title, "Notification concerning men's dress worn by
women", indicates that slacks and shorts were considered as men's
clothing, and that the fact that the offending garments were tailored for the
female figure and therefore not bought in the menswear department of
clothes shops, does not justify their adoption by women.
Cardinal Siri condemned trousers on women from a two-fold perspective:
firstly that they involved a degree of immodesty (albeit not as grave as
abbreviated skirts), and secondly that they were a symbol of feminist
ideology, “the visible aid to bring about a mental attitude of being ‘like a
man’”. (Incidentally this is exactly what Bishop de Castro Mayer meant
when he said that trousers were even worse than mini-skirts because the
latter attacked the senses while the former attacked the mind, thus
constituting an ideological weapon in the feminist battle for the de-
feminising of women). Since the clothing a person wears “modifies that
person’s gestures, attitudes and behaviour”, the Cardinal predicted that the
change from skirts to trousers would modify the Christian perception of
womanhood as essentially ordered towards motherhood, and that it would
subvert the divinely ordained order in which the husband is the protector of
his wife and head of the family.
Alas, it has all come to pass as he had forecast: women have adopted men’s
dress, and there has been a wholesale paradigm-shift in society’s
perception of femininity. Misled by the tenets of feminist dogma, women are
being won over to the idea that the Catholic teaching of the man being the
head of the woman and family is all irrelevant nonsense, and totally absurd
in the modern world. The effect of this is to blur God's purposes in giving
men and women distinctive, though complementary, roles in society, and to
abolish the “headship of man” doctrine in every area of life - Church, family,
education, government etc. As Cardinal Siri put it:
"First, the wearing of men's dress by women affects the woman herself, by
changing the feminine psychology proper to women; second, it affects the
woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate relationships between
the sexes; and third, it affects the woman as mother of her children by
harming her dignity in her children's eyes. … This changing of the feminine
psychology does fundamental, and, in the long run, irreparable damage to
the family, to conjugal fidelity, to human affections and to human society…
Nobody stands to gain by helping to bring about a future age of vagueness,
ambiguity, imperfection and, in a word, monstrosities."

Because shorts and slacks break both the modesty and gender barriers, we
have a superb medley of immodesty AND 'masculinity' all gift-wrapped
nicely for today´s modern career woman!

How teaching sisters shaped Catholic culture

When I went to a convent school in England in the late 1950s, the
Headmistress would give each year group fortnightly tutorials designed to
prepare Catholic girls for the temptations and dangers to the life of the soul
that they would face in the modern world. Among the warnings and
admonitions, the following three items were candidates for the greatest
condemnation by the teaching sisters: television, pop music and women's
trousers. All three were treated from the perspective of Original Sin and its
effect of Concupiscence (a word, I recall, that almost stretched from one
side of the blackboard to the other, and was the devil's own job to spell)
which leaves human nature vulnerable to the assaults of the devil. We were
admonished to discipline our senses, sanctify our souls with the graces that
make us pleasing to Our Lord and Our Lady and avoid the 'broad path' of
modern fashions influenced by pop psychology and television culture which
threaten our souls with spiritual dangers.

As so little has been written in appreciation of teaching orders of nuns, it is

easy to underestimate the tremendous impact that women religious had on
the development of Catholicism before the Council and the strength of the
Catholic Church in the British Isles as in other countries of the world. The
very cohesiveness of a large congregation of women religious in every area
allowed them far more influence over the minds of their pupils than any
group of lay women could have exerted in the same period. Their presence
was a major force for moral rectitude and stability in every neighbourhood
where they taught the faith and helped young girls to conduct their lives
according to Catholic principles. In the 1950s, convent schools were so
prevalent that it was impossible for them not to influence the outlook of
Catholic girls with regard to modesty in dress.

The Church's interpretation of what constitutes modesty in dress was

hugely influential in Catholic countries principally because it was preached
and defended by popes, bishops, clergy and religious and echoed by lay
teachers in charge of young people in their formative years. It is not
exaggerating to say that if the adoption of a Catholic dress code for girls is
attributable to any sector of the Church more than others, that sector was
the congregations of teaching sisters from which it received its most
powerful impetus and orientation. In the days before the Council, good
Catholic girls and women dressed decently because they had learned
repeatedly from their earliest years to subordinate their own opinions and
desires to the standards that were required of them. I know for a fact that
even in Irish Primary Schools the teaching sisters operated a strict dress
code: mothers who had sent their girls to school in too short dresses would
find their daughters returned to them at the end of the day with a strip of
paper pinned to the end of the dress to show the required length!

In Ireland, women teachers were trained in Catholic colleges such as the

Mary Immaculate Teacher Training College in Limerick, run by the Sisters of
Mercy. The nuns taught their students the moral principles governing
feminine modesty which they, in turn, were to pass on to their future pupils.
We can gather some insights into what this entailed from a journal
produced in 1927 by the trainee teachers. Echoing the Irish Bishops'
concern about the spread of what they termed "indecent fashions", they
launched “the Mary Immaculate Modest Dress and Deportment Crusade”
with the intention of rescuing “Irish maidenhood from the grip of the pagan
world”. Among the articles of attire to be reprobated were trousers,
referred to as “mannish and immodest” dress.

In promoting modesty in dress for those under their charge, teaching

sisters were complying with Rome's decrees. In 1930 Pope Pius XI had
directed the Sacred Congregation of the Council to issue a strongly-worded
Letter on Christian Modesty to the whole world (as had Pope Benedict XV
before him):

"Nuns, in compliance with the Letter dated August 23, 1928, by the Sacred
Congregation of Religious, must not receive in their colleges, schools,
oratories or recreation grounds, or, if once admitted, tolerate girls who are
not dressed with Christian modesty; said Nuns, in addition, should do their
utmost so that love for holy chastity and Christian modesty may become
deeply rooted in the hearts of their pupils."

The same message was reinforced in all Catholic schools, colleges and
universities before the Council. The only concession made for gymnastics
and sports in convent schools was shorts of the culotte type with boxed
pleats reaching almost to the knee, and then only in an all-girl setting.

Once a Convent Girl…

There's something about a convent girl who received her education before
Vatican II that marks her out from other girls of her generation: she has
had her conscience formed by the teaching sisters in the basic moral
principles of obedience and chastity, with the word MODESTY branded in
letters of fire on her subconscious mind. True modesty, they taught, begins
in the soul which must be protected from being laid open to dangers. Girls
were admonished never to lose their innocence, always to avoid anything
that might rob them of it, such as immodest fashions, and to fight like
heroines to preserve it at all costs. Their role model was St Maria Goretti,
the Italian girl canonised in 1950 who died in 1902 heroically defending her
purity. Modesty was therefore taught as an inner virtue - one of the twelve
fruits of the Holy Ghost - and the true cause and ground for outer modesty
as expressed in one's attire. Whether or not the convent educated girl
always adhered to a Catholic dress code outside school life, an inescapable
sense of 'shamefacedness' remained long after she has left school, and she
carried this principle in her innermost mind even if she could not always
articulate it with reasoned arguments.

Whereas other girls have no reliable standards by which to judge modest

dress (some fundamentalist Protestant sects use biblical references to
preach feminine modesty, but do so using their own interpretation), the
convent girl has been gradually educated in responsibility towards the
moral well being of herself and others. As Pope Pius XII put it:

"without the faith, without Christian education, deprived of the help of the
Church, where can bewildered woman find the courage to face unfalteringly
moral demands surpassing purely human strength? "

The Seduction of Vatican II

Adapting Catholic morals to the modern world, as Vatican II did, had
disastrous effects. When the Council called for an adaptation of the Church
to the Modern World, what it was saying is that the Church needed to end
the separation between the religious life and worldly life and conform
herself to the values of the world. Belief in the supernatural was assimilated
into faith in naturalism, and the distinction between the two was lost. This
change is of paramount importance to what happened next: religious orders
of nuns were among the first to embrace the Vatican II reforms both in their
own communities and in the wider world. Caught up in the current of the
New Thinking, the sisters were like sitting ducks: the best they could do
was to take a defensive stand in a situation that was indefensible, and they
were an easy target with no chance of escaping the hunter. Most took to the
reforms like ducks to water. Whether they were progressives or
conservatives in their outlook, all were obliged to adopt a more indulgent,
admiring view of the modern world and its fashions and stop regarding it as
a spiritual enemy. No longer shocked at the sight of women in trousers, they
got into them themselves and mounted the sanctuary steps where they
continue to challenge the supremacy of the all-male priesthood.

With the disappearance of an authoritative guide from our religious leaders

on a Catholic dress code, the New Thinking affected the Church in its
membership and social and cultural environment. It is well known that
when the practice of modesty, like any other moral principle, has simply
become a matter left to the individual's sense of responsibility, it is
gradually forgotten. Unfortunately, modern Popes have not given specific
advice on women and trousers, priests have failed in their duty to give the
traditional moral guidance, and women have been left unprotected by their
pastors. If they are not guided in this matter by Popes, women will be
guided by the bad example of their peers, by fashion designers and retailers
who have a financial interest in promoting trends, and by feminists with an
ideological agenda to tear down the conventions that Christian civilisation
has established as safeguards of the virtue of purity.
The implications for women's fashions are clear: we now have a
relativisation of standards of decency and loss of a sense of decorum.
Nobody blushes any more - or hardly. This relativism has slowly weakened
in consciences the notions of good and evil, sin and grace, vice and virtue,
and, by analogy, the standards of modesty in dress. It has led to a curious
irony - the modernist clergy, brazen in defending the freedom of women to
wear trousers even in church, are bashful when it comes to preaching about
modesty! What a shocking indictment on the blindness produced by too
much exposure to the world: they do not see a violation of modesty in
women wearing trousers or a profanation of holy places by such attire.
Instead of exhorting their flocks to transcend the pressures of fashion,
modernist clergy have laughingly adopted the "New Morality" including a
"New Modesty" (they regard the 'old modesty' as a joke!) which allows
immodest styles of clothing to be worn in church. The silence of the clergy,
indeed their laxist complicity with immodest clothing, provides the means
for women to pursue their own pleasure, comfort and convenience with the
Church assisting them. It is one thing to tolerate wrongdoing by being silent
when God's laws are mocked. It is something else to contribute to it by not
working to eradicate it as best as one can.

Certainly the Society of St Pius X cannot be accused of turning a blind eye to

the problem. By speaking out against immodest fashions, traditional priests
are fulfilling Pope Pius XI's exhortation:
"Let parish priests and preachers, according to the recommendation of Saint
Paul, and as the occasion presents itself, “insist, explain, reprove and
exhort”, to the end that women should dress in such a way as to radiate
modesty, and their clothing enhance and protect virtue. Let them, also,
admonish parents not to allow their daughters to wear immodest outfits."
Bishop Williamson was right in line with traditional Catholic morality when
he said: "Let not wild horses drag you into shorts or trousers." and "Let the
wife then sacrifice her own will, her emancipation, her trousers, her money
and pseudo-career in order to attain the glorious freedom of motherhood to
bring into the world and raise whatever children God sends." He was only
fulfilling his duty as envisioned by Pope Pius XI:
"Nothing is more reasonable or more necessary than that the Bishops - as is
fitting for ministers of Christ - should, with one voice, raise a barrier against
these bold and licentious fashions, bearing with serenity and courage the
insults and mockery which they will receive, because of their unyielding
position..."

"You've forgotten your skirt!"

Some Catholic girls and women can be incredibly naive about the effects of
immodesty; they sincerely want to lead a Christian life, but seem to be
unaware of the link between a chaste heart and a chaste appearance, and of
their potential for leading others astray. Pope Pius XII warned:
Numbers of believing and pious women...in accepting to follow certain bold
fashions, break down, by their example, the resistance of many other
women to such fashions, which may become for them the cause of spiritual
ruin. As long as these provocative styles remain identified with women of
doubtful virtue, good women do not dare to follow them; but once these
styles have been accepted by women of good reputation, decent women
soon follow their example, and are carried along by the tide into possible
disaster.
Pope Pius XII did not mention any particular article of clothing by name -
modesty and discretion would prevent him from doing so - but it is obvious
that shorts and slacks come under his censure as being "bold" and
"provocative". In contrast to modern Popes who praise women's
participation in sports that require such clothing, Pope Pius XII warned
against them. It is reasonable to assume that if he condemned athletic
outfits for women on the sports field and in the gym, he would have been
even more critical of their adoption for everyday life.

No such thing as modest trousers on women

If women are "dressing to kill" these days, there is no doubt that they have
succeeded in killing the morals of men and endangering their souls by
wearing provocative styles, particularly midriff-baring tops and how-low-
can-you-go jeans. Some women appear to have been melted down and
poured into their garments. A good question to ask oneself by way of
analogy is: "Which outlines the form of the hand more - a mitten or a
glove?" and then apply the question to a skirt and a pair of trousers, both of
which provide adequate coverage. It is obvious that there can be varying
degrees of immodesty depending on the cut of the trousers, but that there
is no such thing as 'modest' trousers - they may look modest on the clothes
rack, but they behave like any other trousers when you put them on. The
'crux' of the matter, (if you get my meaning), is that even if trouser legs are
of generous width and not particularly clinging, the fitted area is bound to
offset the female form to a greater or lesser extent, and its very visibility is
what causes an immodest impression to be fixed in the mind. Any woman
who does not agree should take a long, hard look in the mirror and try to
see herself as others (especially men) see her! Perhaps then she will agree
that trousers reveal much more than gender.

Let's talk modesty - and honesty

Women often say they wear slacks because they are more comfortable or
convenient for getting in and out of cars, warmer in winter etc., and shorts
because the weather is hot (but it is even hotter in Purgatory!). But with a
little of the ingenuity and resourcefulness for which women are famed, a
judicious combination of articles of apparel can be chosen from among the
contents of a woman's wardrobe to enable her to wear skirts for many
occasions - windy days and sub-zero temperatures, cycling, hiking and
riding side-saddle, for instance - all without the need to wear trousers.
There are some sporting activities which cannot be done in a skirt and so
must be out of bounds for women. Sacrificing convenience and freedom is
not easily done, but if a more restricted life-style for the sake of modesty
and propriety is the path of greater holiness, it is also potentially one of
greater sacrifice and will bring its rewards in increased graces.

Let us be perfectly honest: even if an individual does not comply with the
surrounding a-moral culture, it is giving the wrong message for a Catholic
woman to don trousers which align her with the outward appearance of
those who wish to detach themselves from a Christian way of life. After all,
what would people think if you walked into a room wearing a tee-shirt with
a large swastika emblazoned on it? If you are not a Nazi sympathiser, why
give the impression of being one? Yet there are Catholic women even in
traditionalist circles who, while not fitting the strict definition of "feminist",
nevertheless reflect that ethos to some degree, not least in their vehement
protest against anyone declaring trousers as unsuitable attire for women.
Feminism is so pervasive in our society that traces of the feminist mindset
can be found even among those Catholics who would disavow the feminist
label.

Conclusion
The key to the whole issue is for women to dress in a feminine manner so as
to communicate the language of submission and acceptance of womanhood
rather than the language of rebellion and rejection of God’s design. As
Christian women, we have a biblical obligation to dress modestly and reflect
holiness, and so we should dress in a feminine manner, to show that we
accept the place God has given us in the Church, in the family and in
society,. God's message about modesty may seem embarrassingly old-
fashioned in our culture, but God's word does not change. There are no
general circumstances either in the past or present which mitigate or set
aside this teaching. While it is acceptable to have feminised forms of coats,
hats, shoes etc., trousers are in a category of their own because of the area
of the body on which they are worn and their inherent "suggestiveness". It
will never be right for women to overshadow or displace traditional Catholic
teaching by claiming the right to wear trousers.
If we judge the question in the light of the virtual collapse of the Catholic
Church in society after more than forty years of religiously neutral teaching,
it would suggest that the trouser culture, insofar as its basic premises have
now become enshrined in society, has indeed served to injure Catholicism
and the overall social good. It has the effect of undermining the priority,
both in public and then in private life, of supernatural or spiritual reality.
Part of the problem is that what was taught before the Council as Catholic
morality is now viewed as a threat to the liberal values of tolerance,
individual freedom and egalitarianism - all of which have become the
orthodoxy of the age. This means that, in practice, the pre-Conciliar
condemnation of trousers comes into conflict with the self-serving tendency
in (wo)man. It is seen as being contrary to the freedom of the individual
and likely to frustrate her self-fulfilment and/or happiness. But St Thomas
shows that the punishment for Original Sin was not only the subordination
of woman to man but its unpleasantness, and that woman would not always
be readily obedient.
Has the trouser culture really elevated our uniqueness as women? Has it
contributed to an increase in chivalry from men? On the contrary, the
fashion has become counter-productive for women:
• their dignity has been lowered both in the eyes of society and of their own
children
• as fashions have become bolder, their innate sensitivity to immodesty has
been blunted by sensual overload
• their minds have been ideologically corrupted by feminist thinking so that
they have generally rejected God's design for the family
• there is widespread confusion in society about what constitutes femininity
and masculinity
• the de-feminising effect of trousers on the younger generation is
unedifying. Young girls of today have, for the most part, worn trousers most
of their life, and as a result they tend to behave like boys. It is little wonder
that they feel uncomfortable in dresses and that, as Pope Pius XII noted,
they have lost the instinct for modesty. Our age has witnessed a general
coarsening of conversation and manners among young girls at a time of
their life when they should be learning Mary-like standards of modesty and
deportment.

The women's trouser culture is one of the most insidious by-products of

modern liberalism, and it is therefore not surprising that all it has promoted
is moral frivolity and exhibitionism, confusion, the debasement of women, a
coarsening of attitudes among women themselves and a lowering of moral
tone in society.

We need to rescue the Christian concept of womanhood from modern

society's confusion over marital duties and family life. In order to maintain
standards of decency in dress, women need the graces that come from
frequent prayer. They also need the moral support of their menfolk: in the
first place of the Holy Father, then of the hierarchy, clergy and religious and
also of their husbands. But women have been spiritually short-changed and
woefully let down by the silence of the Magisterium after the Council.
However, there is the other side of the coin: the problem of the unruly wife
and the passion with which some women pursue the 'right' to wear
trousers. Instead of having a "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Pet. 3:4), they
frustrate their husband's attempts to counsel them by continually usurping
his authority in the home. The Magisterium may be silent, but women are
vocal!
The plague of legs is a just punishment. Here are some wise words from Fr
Gruner:

"God allows us to be punished by the silence of the Magisterium today for

the sins of not obeying the Magisterium when it spoke up: just as God, as
punishment, did not send more prophets to the people of the Old Testament
after the people had killed and rejected many of the prophets He had
already sent to them."

For those who are new to Catholic morality, or who are unaware of what the
Church has taught before the Council, it would be good to cultivate the habit
of thinking that if the Church has preached against women wearing
trousers, then somewhere there is a good case for believing it drawn from
Revelation, Tradition or natural reason. They would do well to heed the
teachings of the Society priests as they strive to inculcate a spirit of purity
and awaken a sense of the angelic virtue among the young. The result
would be perfectly Catholic: modern 'Bloomerites' who still cling doggedly
on to the trouser-leg of feminist culture should stay at home to look after
their children and cut their trousers into strips to make mops.

GIVE US GUIDELINES ON MODESTY

In December, 1985, we received a letter from Joseph B. of New York asking us to get
the Vatican to supply guidelines on Modesty in Dress. His letter follows:

"Dear Father Gruner,

"Three times this year I have written to the Vatican to obtain information on the
subject MODESTY. Twice I wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger and once (recently) to Pope
John Paul II. In these letters I asked for booklets, history, documents, etc. in which
MODESTY would be fully explained. I have not received an answer at all.

"I ask you Father Gruner, could you somehow get the Vatican to supply this material
to me? Please. You know that at Fatima, MODESTY was very much stressed by the
Blessed Virgin Mary. She said that She wanted people to dress modestly.

"All this year I've been asking everyone possible about the subject MODESTY - but
no one seems to know or care. There has to be detailed information on MODESTY, since
THE MOTHER OF GOD WOULD NOT TELL US TO DRESS MODESTLY IF
THERE WERE NO GUIDELINES TO FOLLOW.

"Please reply!

"Sincerely,

Joseph B.,
New York."

Our Response

It is with apprehension that we reply to this request. Today we know that there is
much opposition from some laypeople and even from some bishops to teaching the
Catholic Doctrine regarding Modesty in Dress. The Vatican has in the past given clear
guidelines regarding Modesty in Dress.

It is perhaps because there has been widespread opposition and disobedience to these
guidelines that the Vatican refuses to come out with a new statement.

God allows us to be punished by the silence of the Magisterium today for the sins of
not obeying the Magisterium when it spoke up. Just as God, as punishment, did not send
more prophets to the people of the Old Testament after the people had killed and rejected
many of the prophets He had already sent to them.

If anyone wants the last clear statement of guidelines from the Vatican and Church
authorities, they can obtain it from the International Fatima Rosary Crusade offices - ask
for the Modesty in Dress leaflet. The essential guidelines that the Vatican gave in this
matter are summed up in the one paragraph which we here quote:

"A dress cannot be called decent which is cut deeper than two fingers breadth under
the pit of the throat; which does not cover the arms at least to the elbows; and scarcely
reaches a bit beyond the knees. Furthermore, dresses of transparent materials are
improper."

Following this guideline as well as special guidance from Heaven, Padre Pio the
stigmatic priest who bore the bleeding wounds of Christ on his own body from 1918 until
his death in 1968 refused time and again to absolve any woman, no matter how important
she was, who did not wear her skirts well below the knee. He also insisted that they do
not wear slacks. Yet this guideline, due to ignorance, prejudice, enslavement to vanity or
passion has been combated so much.

Over six years ago, even two bishops temporarily entered the fight. They felt
compelled to persecute The Fatima Crusader in 1979 for publishing this material. One of
these bishops, several years later before his death, seemed more disposed to hear the
truth.

Thus we hope you will understand why today many priests do not want to talk about
this subject. But for Our Lady of Fatima and for the salvation of souls we shall here
attempt to explain the matter more fully.

We agree that Joseph B. poses an important question. One that is very important
because if it is not properly answered it can lead to the loss of immortal souls. These
souls are of infinite worth because Jesus Christ paid for them with the shedding of His
Most Precious Blood. Immodesty in Dress, if gravely offensive would be a mortal sin for
the wearer and it is an occasion of sin for the beholder of immodest fashions. So that
immodest fashions alone send to Hell, or at least make worthy of Hell's fire, the souls of
many of those who see these fashions.
 Our Lady at Fatima lamented that in our times the Militant Atheists that is the
Communists and their associates in our own country would spread their errors against our
Christian Catholic faith and morals. Our Lady said, "Russia will spread her errors
throughout the world." She also said, "Certain fashions will be introduced which will
offend My Son very much."

The Blessed Virgin Mary also tells us at Fatima that "more souls go to hell for sins of
the flesh than any other reason".

There are a number of sins against purity that Our Lady was referring to and there is
need for clear teaching that only persons who are married may have procreative relations.
All others may not use or even give their consent to any pleasure attached to the
procreative faculties. Nor may these faculties be voluntarily aroused except in marriage.
This is because the power of begetting children is a sacred trust that God has given to
men and women to be used only according to His laws.

As Creator of each one of us as well as Creator of each child's immortal soul He has a
right to demand we obey Him. These matters were explained in a general way in The
Fatima Crusader: Issue No. 15, "The Meaning of Christian Chastity", by Father Pelagia,
S.T.D. It is because these sins against holy purity are particularly prevalent today causing
many souls to go to hell that we here publish Father Pelagia's article on Modesty in Dress
and in answer to Joseph B. and many other people's requests.

Background Information

To help you more fully understand Father Pelagia's explanation given below, some
background Theology would be useful. It is because of original sin that every man,
woman and child experiences difficulty in controlling some of his appetites, even when
he knows by his reason it is in his own best interests to do so.

For example, everyone might recall eating just a little too much after his reason and
senses tell him that he has already had enough. Others have felt the desire for more
alcohol to drink, or cigarettes to smoke even though they know that any more is not good
for them. The appetites then like the appetites for food and drink, clearly want to "do
their own thing" even when it is bad for the person who is the owner of that appetite.

We do not always have direct control over how our sense appetites feel. We can
control them by Christian mortification as well as by other indirect methods. For
example, by not keeping our mind's attention focused on food, drink or tobacco, we can
the more easily not give in to the sin of gluttony. If we continue to dwell on food or drink
or the pleasure they give us then inevitably we shall give in to our appetites even against
our better judgment.

Since Original Sin, this appetite for sex, the procreative faculty's appetite in all men
and women is also not always subject to direct control of the will and intellect.
 This appetite is also controlled indirectly by the mortification of fasting and
abstinence, as well as by not dwelling upon certain creatures that would tend to awaken a
desire in this appetite. Because this appetite is so powerful (God made it that way in order
to ensure the continuation of the human race) it does not take much to arouse the desire
of the procreative faculty. Because of the different nature of men and women, it is
generally true that men's sexual desire is more easily aroused.

It is by seeing persons of the opposite sex immodestly dressed that persons, especially
men, find that their appetite for use of the procreative faculty is drawing them to exercise
this faculty. This can happen even when it is against the Law of God, and, therefore bad
for the person. That is when this appetite is not directed towards one's marriage partner,
and if it is, after sufficient reflection fully consented to, then that person has thereby
committed a mortal sin.

If this sin is not repented, it would eventually drag that soul to hell for eternity.

Therefore, as a result of this weakness that our brothers and sisters experience as a
result of original sin, we must safeguard their virtue by dressing modestly. Both men and
women are obliged to dress modestly in strict justice and charity. To offend in this matter
is often a mortal sin.

Because of the differences in psychology between men and women it is usually the
case that the devil and the militant atheists try to get women to dress immodestly. By this
strategy the devil and his followers often succeed in causing men and women to fall into
hell. This they achieve by having men mortally sin by their eyes and impure desires and
actions. This also causes men to be enslaved on earth by the militant atheists as is
explained in the booklet Our Lady's Urgent Appeal. The women are sent to hell for
having caused the men to sin by their immodest manner of clothing. They, too, thereby
give the Communists and other militant atheists the greater possibility of enslaving the
free world.

It is a mistake to read into this concern for modesty as somehow being anti-women.
Both men and women are bound by the law of modesty. However, it is much more
common for the sin of immodesty to be committed by women, that is why Father Pelegia
outlines the obligation of women in this regard. Men, too, must be concerned about this
virtue. And if they should feel that their clothes are too tight or immodest in any other
way, they too must be more modest so as to not be the occasion whereby anyone of their
sisters in Christ should lose their souls by unlawful desires being aroused.

With this background we should appreciate the clarifying article of Father Pelagia, a
Doctor of Sacred Theology. He is a Catholic priest who has for more than 20 years
studied the moral theology of St. Alphonsus Liguori. St. Alphonsus has been proclaimed
Doctor of the Church in Moral Theology by the Magisterium of the Church. Father's
article starts immediately below.
 Mary-Like Guidelines

A sound guide for girls and women who want to know what good authorities in the
Catholic Church have to say about modesty in dress, is the program of the Mary-like
Crusade.

For many years until his death in 1969 Father Bernard Kunkel of the diocese of
Belleville, Illinois, U.S.A., was Director of the Crusade, his bishop being the President.
Followers of the Crusade pledge themselves to observe the norms contained in A Girl's
Modesty Guide, which we here print:

IN RESPONSE TO THE PLEA OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA FOR

ABSOLUTE MODESTY IN DRESS AND TO HELP PREVENT THE
COUNTLESS SINS CAUSED BY IMMODEST DRESS, ESPECIALLY IN THE
SUMMER TIME, I SHALL EARNESTLY STRIVE TO CARRY OUT THIS
PROGRAM:

1. To refrain entirely from wearing "shorts" of any type, whether at home or in public.

2. To refuse to wear other types of scanty wear, including such things as sun-suits,
and such outfits that expose the shoulders, breast, back, or midriff; likewise to avoid
sheer or transparent outfits, tight dresses, tight sweaters, and tight slacks; and to wear
only such skirts that go sufficiently below the knees to safeguard modesty in all normal
postures and movements.

3. To limit my necessary recreational or work garb only to such pants-type garments

that reach below the knees and are not tight - preferably full-length ample slacks.

4. To be particularly careful to dress modestly and respectfully for church, and for all
sacred services and sacred places, including parish grounds; to encourage others always
to dress with Mary-like modesty, without fear of being "unpopular"; to follow the wishes
of Our Immaculate Lady rather than the decrees of pagan fashion dictators.
 Father Bruno Pelagia;
Catholic Priest, Theologian
& Doctor of Sacred Theology
Further Explains:

We are glad to see here and there ladies and girls who do not need to be told in order
to follow these norms. But as for those who stray away from such wise norms, I, as God's
minister, ask them to heed my plea:

YOU CANNOT MAINTAIN AN UPRIGHT, UNSEARED CONSCIENCE, AND

BE SO THOUGHTLESS!

Do not say, What evil is there in the way I dress?

For would that not be a naive question? You must suspect that exposing a woman's
body as you do can be terribly provocative.

Do not say, Those who see me this way are not forced to sin!

For we admit that. But should we not wish to reduce the offenses our Divine Lord
receives when we can? Woe to us if we are indifferent about this! Woe to us if, from this
indifference, our conduct coaxes others into sin! We know that some good men will so
successfully resist any woman's provocativeness that they will not sin in the least, but
will gain merit. However, some others, being weak, will consent to what is forbidden;
and according to the Scriptures, you will share in their sin for unnecessarily giving them a
lure to it. (Matt. 18:7)

Do not say, All the other girls dress this way!

For we admit the sad fact that many are that thoughtless. But even if all were so
thoughtless, you should not follow such an example. You consider yourself capable of
making wise decisions of your own in personal matters. Seeing that you have the
freedom, the privilege, and the duty to pursue virtue and heaven, would you unthinkingly
follow the herd like sheep do? "Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate and
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction: and many there are who go in thereat. How
narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!"
(Matt. 7:13-14). Let a sense of responsibility and uprightness distinguish you from the
herd.

Do not say, I do not mean to do evil.

 For I can believe that. But the mischief you are doing by dressing without due care of
the consequences is an evil you will be responsible for.

Do not say, I feel I should be in style and up-to-date.

For there are good women and girls who, using a bit of resourcefulness, manage to
dress with a modest attractiveness and charm. But beware of a style which, luring men
toward corrupt morals, serves only vanity and the devil; for it is a tragic deception. No
matter how styles change and popular tastes change, the moral law does not change.

Do not say, Often it is hard to judge if a dress is modest or not.

Reflect: If you suspect that a dish of food is poisoned, you do not serve it to anyone,
for fear of doing harm. Even more so should you not wisely play safe when you have any
prudent suspicion that your manner of dress will be a source of harm? Does not an
upright conscience look upon sin as the greatest of harms?

Do not say, I refuse to be a bigot and a hypocrite!

For how can it be wrong to act upon an upright conscience, which tells you that an
offense against the all-holy God is truly the greatest of evils? A bigot and a hypocrite is
one who pretends to hate sin and love God when he does not really care about these
things. But I ask you to care, and how is that wrong? Uprightness, which at times requires
sweat and tears and courage, is never the same as bigotry and hypocrisy. And the Saints
who fought valiantly against immodesty, were they bigots or hypocrites?

Do not say, Men want me this way.

That may be true of men who prefer a bit of pleasure to God's friendship; but it is not
true of men who live by a right conscience. Furthermore, it is to God that you must one
day render an account, not to men.

Do not say, Beauty is supposed to be seen.

I could reply that "When bodily beauty is shown off a great deal, it loses its
loveliness." But there is a physical beauty that cannot be displayed without becoming a
lure to tempt men to forbidden satisfactions. On the other hand, if you thought that there
was beauty in displaying your legs, why is there not beauty in showing Christian modesty
and a concern for the good of souls?

Do not say, But I feel hot!

You know how to put up with the heat when you want to. Surely a good conscience is
worth suffering a bit of heat for. Many good souls bear the heat willingly in order to offer
it as a penance to God. But - sad to say - some women in hot weather go scantily clad to
Mass and other church gatherings who dress modestly when they must work in an office
where they receive all kinds of clients, or when they must teach school, or when they
must work as salesclerks where they have to satisfy all kinds of customers.

Do not say, There are bigger problems and bigger sins than this.

Yes. Some sins are worse than others (John 19:11). But even the less grave ones are
real sins. One need not be a hunted outlaw in order to go to hell. And I have the strongest
objections to seeing you go there. I will go there myself if I do not try to keep others from
going there.

YOUNG LADY, LET NOTHING CHEAT YOU OUT OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE

AND YOUR ETERNAL DESTINY!

If you want to be Christian in fact and not just in name, if you want to help and not
hinder the work of grace to reform consciences, if you do not want to feel remorse
tomorrow and bear a weight of guilt, then put forth the effort to dress with Mary-like
modesty,

... so that you may prove yourself a Christian woman and not a mere man-trap;

... so that you uplift and inspire chaste love, and not enkindle forbidden pleasure.
Skirting the Difference

SKIRTING THE DIFFERENCE

What's wrong with women wearing trousers
by Dr Carol Byrne
________________________________________________

The ancient Egyptians were afflicted with plagues of various kinds - blood,
frogs, lice, beasts, cattle, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness - each one more
deadly than the one before, but the last and worst has been reserved for our
times: a plague of legs. They get everywhere now that women have adopted
the trouser culture. Once not considered in keeping with sartorial propriety,
everywhere in the Western world trousers on women now predominate. If
you walk down the street of any city or town, the proportion of women
wearing trousers to skirts is something like 10:1. The fashion has become
so institutionalised that some women can be said to 'live in trousers'. For
nearly 6,000 years, women always wore long dresses, but only since the
last 40 years, a dress is suddenly "impractical" to wear. Formerly, women
performed a wide variety of jobs, including farming, in skirts. Nowadays,
they can't so much as rake a few leaves in the garden without feeling the
need to put on a pair of pants.

The moral consensus

Feminine modesty has been understood as being distinctive from its male
counterpart in every society since the dawn of history, even in places where
God's word has never reached. (St Thomas Aquinas holds that the behaviour
of all is subject to moral judgement, whether or not they know of the
Revelation of Christianity.) Women have never, in the entire history of
civilization, in any era from earliest antiquity or in any part of the world
until our times, stalked about in trousers that delineated the lower half of
their body and gave visual prominence to their hips and legs. Why not?
Because they had the good sense to realise their physical vulnerability as
the 'weaker vessel' vis-à-vis male readiness to exploit it, and besides, they
wanted to be cherished and respected for their personal qualities other than
their physical endowments. The fundamental issue is that a bifurcated
garment worn as outer attire was considered by people of all civilisations,
even the most barbarian and pagan, to infringe basic levels of feminine
decency and identity.
The custom of women wearing trousers did not start with Catholic women.
Like the New Mass, the fashion was inaugurated and promoted by liberal-
minded people, particularly feminist agitators, intent on discarding Christian
traditions and altering people's understanding of Christian values. (It is true
that the Dress Reform Movement was also a protest against the cruelly
restrictive clothing of the 19th century that was injurious to women's
health, but there are modest and immodest solutions to every problem.)
Just like the New Mass which broke with the whole of liturgical tradition,
the custom has in no way developed from the innate sense of decency
passed down from one Catholic woman to another throughout 2000 years of
the Church's influence on society. The skirt-trouser dichotomy had become
established within all civilisations, including Christian culture, as one of the
main differences between men's and women's clothing. Only very recently
has this difference been obscured.
As we shall see later, Catholic clergy, nuns and educators before the Council
denounced the fashion of women wearing trousers as unbecoming in the
sense of being unfeminine (appropriate only for men) and indecent (inviting
immodest regard). Thus, in the period before Vatican II, a Catholic dress
code for girls and women was closely linked with the concept of feminine
decorum and the avoidance of the occasion of sin. From their knowledge of
the Gospels in which Our Lord demanded purity in glances, thoughts,
desires and actions and warned against giving scandal, Christians generally
understood that immodesty is related to lust and causes temptation to
others. And so a moral conscience was formed which told them that
immodesty, particularly in a woman because of her nature as the temptress
of man, involves an offence against God and a lack of respect for ourselves
and our neighbour. Not to disapprove of trousers for women is to shrug
aside the seriousness of the situation.

* In non-Christian countries such as India and parts of the Far East, where
women wore trousers, they took care to cover them amply with a flowing
robe or a long tunic that concealed the outline of their body below the
waist.

* Among Eskimo women and those who inhabited the Polar region there
was a tradition of wearing long dresses made of hide or an ensemble
consisting of seal skin leggings worn under a poncho-style garment that
descended well below the knees. Whether they were the early Celts or
Vikings or the women of the tribe of Attila the Hun who swept down from
the Steppes of Central Asia, there is no recorded case of a fashion for
women to wear trousers as an outer garment until the 20th century.

* In the eighteenth century, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia known as the

"Merry Tsarina" organised costume balls in which she regularly required
that women dress as men and vice versa. Trousers were indeed worn by
women as part of a fancy dress costume but they were only partly visible
under shortened skirts, and their use was restricted only to a frivolous
occasion.

* During the Napoleonic era and in the American War of Independence there
were women volunteers called "vivandieres" and "cantinieres" who wore
trousers as part of the military uniform. These were the "filles du régiment",
wives, mothers and daughters who followed their men to war to share the
dangers of battle and the hardships of life in the camps. They braved the
bullets to administer sustenance to the soldiers and tend the wounded. The
important feature of their uniform was that all wore calf-length dresses
over trousers or baggy "Zouave" (Turkish-style) pantaloons.

* Moralists of all denominations raged throughout the Victorian era against

the emergent fashion of trousers on women. Amelia Bloomer gave her name
to a revolutionary style of dressing, but even her 'shocking' innovation
(1851) that sent ripples of indignation through polite society and drew fiery
condemnations from every pulpit, came with a mid-length skirt worn over
billowy pantaloons that were tied at the ankle.

* There is no doubt that from Victorian times women wearing trousers were
considered both immodest and unfeminine. The early feminists who wore
trousers were often lampooned in the press in their attempt to ape
manliness. A common criticism was that trousers gave a woman "an
extremely mannish look".
*Here is what G.K. Chesterton thought about women wearing trousers:
"And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as
good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a
woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which
now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was
common for an "advanced" woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a
right about as GROTESQUE as the right to wear a false nose...It is quite
certain that the skirt means female dignity."
This commentary was written in 1910 when the custom was in its infancy; it
may be a century old, but it is even more relevant in our times than it was in
Chesterton's.

* All dictionaries up to the early 20th century defined “trousers” as “a

garment worn by males.” This identification of trousers as a male garment
did not change until the 60s after women began to liberate their legs
publicly in the 50s, thus altering the public perception.

* In wartime, women workers in munitions factories wore dungarees under

overalls.

It is evident that trousers were historically associated with men, and

wherever they were adopted by women they were subject to 'purdah', that
is skirted around by cultural restrictions and limited to specific
circumstances. There is thus no recorded history of women adopting the
fashion of wearing trousers like their menfolk until the 20th century.

We can deduce two things from this enduring and universal phenomenon:
- a moral consensus, based on instinctual feelings of shamefacedness,
existed up to modern times among all women, and that their desire to
conceal rather than reveal was not a social construct but a natural reaction.
- trousers as an outer garment are not and never have been feminine
apparel, and by putting them on women (with a different designer label)
does not make them any less men’s clothing.

This evidence quite escapes those who deny the significance for our time of
God's edict given to Moses: "A woman shall not be clothed with a man’s
apparel; neither shall a man use woman’s apparel: for he that doeth these
things is abominable before God " (Deuteronomy 22:5). The mere mention
of such an edict is enough to make some people hiss "Old Testament
fundamentalist" in my direction, but it was the basis on which the Church
formed her teaching that women must dress in a distinctively feminine
manner and be modest in heart as well as apparel (I Peter 3:3-4).
True Devotion to Our Lady

True devotion to Our Lady is interior.

It must be based upon the high esteem that we have of the Blessed Virgin. It must
flow from our understanding of her excellence. It must be inspired by love which we
bear for her.
True devotion to the Blessed Virgin must be tender.
We must have the same confidence in her that a child has in his mother. We should
have recourse to her in all our needs of body and soul. We should implore her aid at
all times and in all places.
In our doubts she will enlighten us.
In our wanderings she will direct us to the path of salvation.
In our temptations she will strengthen us.
In our falls she will help us quickly to rise again.
In our discouragements she will console us.
In our anxieties she will counsel us.
In our crosses, trials and difficulties, she will infallibly and speedily come to our aid.
True devotion to Our Blessed Lady is supernatural.
It leads the Catholic to avoid sin.
It inspires him to imitate the virtues of the Blessed Virgin in the highest degree.
The Catholic will strive to clothe himself with the humility, faith, obedience, purity,
mortification patience, charity, sweetness and wisdom of the Immaculate Mother of
God.
We need never fear to cast our cares upon Mary, all powerful Mother of God. She is
our tender Mother whose desire is to assist us, to mitigate our sorrows, and to bring
us into a closer union with Jesus Christ.
The Spirituality of St Louis de Montfort

St Louis de Montfort (1673-1716) is renowned for his treatise on True Devotion to Our
Blessed Lady. Here is a summary of part of his work:

Christ came into the world through the Blessed Virgin Mary and it is through her
that He must reign in the world. Her humility was so profound that she desired to be
hidden from herself and the world so that only God would know her. God took great
pleasure in her singular humility and concealed from the eyes of men those
perfections and exemplary virtues He had bestowed upon her. In deference to her
humility, she would work no miracle, speak only when necessary and be spoken of
by the Evangelists only to make Christ better known and understood. However, the
reality is that Mary is the Masterpiece of God, the admirable Mother of the Son, the
Faithful Spouse of the Holy Ghost and the Sanctuary of the Blessed at Trinity where
no creature can enter except by special privilege.

The Saints have declared that Mary is the earthly paradise in the new Adam, the
divine world of God where He has hidden His only Son and all His precious
treasures, that she is so holy and pure as to be beyond measure. According to St
Bonaventure, the angelic choirs continually praise her; “ holy, holy, holy Mary,
Mother of God and virgin.” (Psalter. Majus B. V.) The whole world is filled with her
glory, Protectress of kingdoms, Patroness of cathedrals and churches, the Mother of
religious orders and congregations. Sinners have the greatest confidence in her and
even the Devils in hell fear and respect her. Let us say with the Saints, “of Mary
there is never enough.” (True Devotion, 10 ) and concur with the Holy Ghost, the
Spouse Mary; “all the glory of the king’s daughter is within.” (Ps. 44, 14). Mary is
the miracle of miracles (St John Damascene; Oratio 1a de Nativitate, T. D. 12 ) in the
order of grace, of nature and glory, the worthy Mother of God. If Christ is not
known, it is because Mary is not known. That Christ may be known and His reign
come into the world through an increase of devotion to Mary.

Having said all this in praise of Mary, we must remember that in comparison to God
she is nothing, for He alone is; “He who is” (Exod., 3, 14). God is entirely free in the
instruments He uses to attain His end. But having begun His work of redeeming the
world through Mary, we may conclude that He will bring to perfection that work
also through Mary, since there is no change in God.

God freely chose to become Man through Mary, the Holy Ghost coming upon her
when she pronounced her meritorious ‘Fiat’. The Father made her fruitful so as to
produce the God -Man and all His members. It is clear that through the submission
of Christ to Mary His mother in all things, He was procuring immense glory for His
heavenly Father more than by leading a public life and working stupendous
miracles. Christ’s first miracle of grace, the sanctification of the Baptist, is worked
through Mary, as is the first miracle of nature, at the wedding feast of Cana;
“whatever he tells you do it.” He will continue His miracles by Mary till the end of
time. The most fruitful union possible, that of the Holy Ghost and the Blessed Virgin,
Modesty in clothing is usually not difficult. Clothing should not be too revealing or too
tight. Women (as well as men) should not wear clothing which shows their
undergarments.

Most social situations allow for modest clothing. However, some women might feel
social pressure to dress immodestly at a party, where other women are dressed
provocatively. It is also difficult for women today to find a modest bathing suit to wear to
a beach or pool.

Modesty applies to behavior even more so than to clothing. God is more offended by
someone who is modest in clothing but immodest in behavior, than He is by someone
who is immodest in clothing but modest in behavior. Even so, we should all be modest
both in clothing and in behavior.

As we can see above, the modesty of Catholic women of the first 13 centuries
pretty much imitated Our Lady's dress completely, from head to toe. The code
during this time was "fashion cater to modesty," not "modesty cater to fashion."
We see a change in this trend in the 14th century with the introduction of the
Renaissance. Now although the women then did not dress wantonly (see
glossary below), their modesty was not the Perfect Model's. Some of them
flaunted their hair, while others wore a bit of pompous clothing. Still, none of it
outlined or uncovered the sensual areas of the body. Later during the heretical
Reformation of the 16th Century, the women of Protestant nations began to
expose more than decency allowed of the the upper regions of the body. During
the 19th century, contrary to the wide-spread notion that women were modest,
women were practically intimidated by the fashion industry, going through
extravagant measures into twisting and outlining their figure, to keep up with
the latest trend. As a reaction to this being "bottled-up" and confined by
clothing, women in the 20th century catered to the flapper craze. This new
rebellious fashion freed them from the restrictive hour-glass shape of the "gay
90's" to the opposite extreme by the clothing being straight, and narrow,
making them look boyish. This idea of "breaking free" from the slavery of 19th
century pseudo-modesty made women reveal rather than conceal a little more
each decade, to the point in which we end up with the scandalous fashions of
the modern catholic woman today. Although Catholic women since the
Reformation were not as modest as those from the first 1300 years of the
Church, they still none the less kept the same standard of decency according to
the natural law.

During the Renaissance, men became immodest and indecent as well. In the
14th century some men wore skin-tight pants, and in opposition the clergy of
that time branded this clothing not only indecent but effeminate. For a man to
fall into the "vice of women" (to entice sensually), by outlining his body with
clothing is very effeminate. During the revolutionary 18th century the royal
men displayed so much pomp and effeminacy in attire, that they could not
properly act the fatherly role as head of state. This effeminacy was probably a
factor in their weakness against their usurpation. After the revolutions men
regained their modesty for the most part, but by then it was too late. The devil
knew from history that behind every man is a woman. If he could get the
woman to fall first, he could then use her to break the man next. For every
Adam there was an Eve, for every David there is a Bathsheba, and for every
Henry VIII there is an Anne Boleyn.

The standard of decency for women throughout the centuries, was always to
cover the legs and not outline nor display them at all. This changed with the
20th century's "new tradition" of decency for Catholic women. Although this
new decency was proposed by neither the Church (anyway, she cannot do such
a thing as to redefine the natural law) nor by Catholic custom, many Catholics
none the less decided that since the heretics were showing a new decency, they
could do the same. If enough people do it, then it's right, was these Catholic's
motto, as if the norm dictated right and wrong, and not the natural law
anymore. Saint Augustine once said, "wrong is wrong whether everyone is
doing it and right is right whether no one is doing it." We as Catholics should
know we do not base our morality on the status quo, but on God and the natural
law (neither of which change.)

The wealthy tend to cater to a new trend before the poor do; rich and famous
women (including the activists) made the "new decency" fashionable in the first
place. The middle and poor class Catholic women wanting to be fashionable
(envy and avarice play a part here) ended up following suit.

Who did start the "Fad" of Catholic Women wearing Pants instead of
Modest Skirts? Was it a Traditional Catholic Woman who was striving to
be a Saint? Let's see what history tells us...
"A pair of baggy trousers gathered at the ankles and worn with a short belted
tunic was sported by Amelia Jenks Bloomer of Homer, New York, in 1851. She
had copied the pants costume from a friend, Elizabeth Smith Miller. But it was
Mrs. Bloomer, an early FEMINIST and staunch supporter of reformer Susan B.
Anthony, who became so strongly associated with the MASCULINE-TYPE
outfit that it acquired her name. Pants, then MEN'S wear, appealed to Amelia
Bloomer...Amelia Bloomer REFUSED to wear the popular fashion. Starting in
1851, she began to appear in public in baggy pants and a short tunic. And as
more women joined the campaign for the right to vote, Mrs. Bloomer turned
the trousers into a UNIFORM OF REBELLION...CHALLENGING the long
TRADITION of who in the family wore the PANTS." --article on the origin of
bloomers/women wearing pants, taken from "Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things" by
Charles Panati

So what can we gather from all this? That a feminist miscreant desired to wear
the other sex's clothes to express a demand for "women's rights" and to spark a
rebellion against the traditional mores in decency. Feminists challenged the
tradition of the man being the head of the family by wearing his clothes. Later
on in the 1930's, the Communists would finalize this revolution in women's
clothing. Using gnostic "theology", the communists deemed women nothing
more than imperfect men, who in order to be as perfect as men, had to express
masculinity and repress their feminine attributes. They made it the ideal
fashion, in their propaganda, that women, in order to express true equality with
men in all things, would also have to wear the masculine clothing for men only,
called Pants. So we can see that this custom of women wearing pants is nothing
more than a feminist tradition. It certainly does not come from the long held
decency code passed down from Catholic woman to Catholic woman
throughout the 19 centuries of the Church's influence on society.

There is a reason that the the custom of women wearing pants DIDN'T start
with Catholic women in a Catholic Society. It was deemed unnatural and
indecent since the time of Christ until this decadent century. The custom would
be deemed unnatural because Catholic women in history thought (and were
right) that pants are for men, and dresses are for women. There was no question
about it. It is indecent because women's bodies are more sensual, so women
wore dresses to cover up more. According to physiology, women are
centrifugal (fleeing away from the center) in their perspective, seeing things
from within themselves, outwardly. Men on the other hand are centripetal
(seeking from the center) in their perspective, seeing things from without
themselves, inwardly. In other words women tend to be the show'er and men
tend to be the looker. This is the reason that women's bodies are more sensual
than a man's. Their bodies are made to be appealing, so that they can attract a
mate (who is designed to look from afar). That is why there is more of an area
on women that is semi-private than there is on men. Women are by nature
designed to be more sensual due to the centripetal-
centrifugal relationship. Knowing this, it is understandable that exhibitionists
tend to be women and voyeurs are usually men.
That's just the way things are. We can't change what is sensual on a person and
what isn't. If it was deemed indecent for women to expose or outline above the
knee in the first 19 centuries of the Church, it is still indecent for women to
expose or outline above the knee in the 20th. A man's sensual area is in the hip
region, so the legs would not have to be completely covered up and pants
would be suitable. The sensual area of a women's body, being from above the
knee, to the elbow, and up to the neck, requires clothing that could effectively
cover this large region. Its always been this way and you cant change what is
sensual unless you dare change human nature, which as Catholics we know we
can't change the natural law. That is the reason why dresses were for women
and pants were for men in the first place.

Another reason that women never wore pants and only modest skirts is in
respect to their femininity. According to physiology, the female form exhibits
rounder and less extreme contours and more obtuse angles. A male body form
is more sharp edged, angular, rugged and broken. This can be seen not only in
the skeleton, and musculature, but also in each sex's face and movements. A
man's face has sharp features, a woman's more soft and round in appearance. A
man's motion is more thought out and jagged with "countless endings", while a
woman's movements are "endlessly continuous". Clothing is supposed to reflect
these masculine and feminine traits. A man is to wear masculine clothing, and a
woman is to only wear feminine clothing. So that a man's garb should express
his masculinity by tending to be straight and narrow, while a woman's attire
should be round, soft, graceful and flowing. So it comes as no surprise that
Catholic women throughout history only wore full length dresses, not only to
be modest, but also because that clothing (being soft, wide, and flowing) is in
accordance to their feminine nature. Men dressed accordingly to their nature as
well. Pants being sharp and narrow, are harmonious with masculinity. Pants are
anything but graceful. Unisex clothing is for unisex people. It would be
abhorrent if a man were to wear the clothing of a woman, so why is it not
abhorrent if women wear masculine clothing such as pants? The Church has
defined what is indecent or not on women, when it said this, about covering up,
at the very least, the sensual areas...
 "A dress cannot be called decent which is cut deeper than two fingers
breadth below the base of the throat, which does not cover the arms at
least to the elbow, and which scarcely reaches a bit below the knees.
Dresses of transparent materials are also indecent."
-The Sacred Congregation of Religious, under Pius XI, January 12, 1930

"One cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and station. 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. Most of them would formerly have blushed for such apparel as
for a grave fault against Christian modesty. Now it does not suffice to exhibit themselves on 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 Holy Altar, where one
receives the Heavenly Author of Purity."
- Pope Benedict XV

"As long as certain audacious modes of dress remain the sad privilege of women of dubious
reputation and almost a sign by which they may be known, no-one else would dare to wear that same
dress upon herself: but the moment that it appears upon persons beyond all reproach, she will
hesitate no longer to follow the current, a current which will drag her perhaps to the worst fall."
-Pope Pius XII, May 22, 1941

"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 for yourselves, the harm which you are causing these children,
whom Heaven has entrusted to you to be brought up as Christians." - Pope Pius XII

"Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Divine Lord very much. Those who serve
God ought not to follow these fashions. Our Lord is always the same." -Our Lady of Fatima, warning
the people of the 1920s of the fashions that were to come for Catholic women. It wasn't a warning of the
fashions that were to come for protestants and pagans since they were already indulging in indecent
fashions. It was a warning to the Children of God, who are going to imitate them.

So Catholic women have to ask themselves who are they using as their Perfect Model for modesty, the
Blessed Virgin Mary or the feminist infidel Amelia Bloomer?

The reason for covering the body in the first place is to "unshape" it. If people think wearing skin-tight
clothing serves the purpose of covering, they are dead wrong. Skin-tight does nothing but uncover the
shape of the body. It is as if one were to wear nothing at all.

The first step of the feminist influence in the Church was Catholic women wearing pants. It would follow
next that there would soon be female lectors, nun's wearing pants, altar girls, female "Doctors" of the
Church, and maybe Priestesses with a Popess!

Rebellion has to start somewhere, and if you don't nip it in the bud, it will continue to grow.

Before Adam fell, Eve sinned first, and it was through her that the father of mankind gave us original sin.
Vatican II's evil, done by men, would never have happened so soon or at all, if the backbone (women) of
the Church had not first fallen. Imitating Eve in falling first, Catholic women of the years preceding this
Council already were becoming lax in their modesty. Without the strength of modest women, men would
fall into lechery and begin to become blind to what the Faith is, and isn't.

Here is a quote that I came across while reading G. K. Chesterton's famous book, "What's Wrong with the
World"...

"...And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as
any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the
rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was
common for an "advanced" woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as
GROTESQUE as the right to wear a false nose...It is quite certain that the skirt means female
dignity..." -pgs. 110-111

I would like to conclude with a quote of a Catholic prophecy sent in by one of our concerned readers...

PROPHECY OF ST. NILUS

Realizing that St. Nilus is scarcely known to a large part of the Church, a brief sketch of his life, taken from
the Catholic Encyclopedia (1911 copyright edition), is related below:

"St. Nilus was one of the many disciples and fervent defenders of St. John Chrysostom. He was an officer
at the Court of Constantinople, married, with two sons. While St. John Chrysostom was patriarch, before
his exile (398-403), he directed Nilus in the study of Scripture and in works of piety. St. Nilus left his wife
and one son and took the other, Theodulos, with him to Mt. Sinai to be a monk. The Bishop of Eleusa
ordained both St. Nilus and his son to the priesthood. The mother and other son also embraced the religious
life in Egypt. From his monastery at Sinai, St. Nilus was a well-known person throughout the Eastern
Church; by his writings and correspondence he played an important part in the history of his time. He was
known as a theologian, Biblical scholar and ascetic writer, so people of all kinds, from the emperor down
wrote to consult him. His numerous works, including a multitude of letters, consist of denunciations of
heresy, paganism, abuses of discipline and crimes, of rules and principles of asceticism, especially maxims
about the religious life. He warns and threatens people in high places, abbots and bishops, governors and
princes, even the emperor himself, without fear. He kept up a correspondence with Gaina, a leader of the
Goths, endeavoring to convert him from Arianism. He denounced vigorously the persecution of St. John
Chrysostom both to the Emperor Arcadius and to his courtiers. St. Nilus must be counted as one of the
leading ascetic writers of the fifth century. His feast is kept on November 12th in the Byzantine Calendar;
he is commemorated also in the Roman Martyrology on the same date. St. Nilus probably died around the
year 430 as there is no evidence of his life after that."

Now the prophecy:

"After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become
unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow
cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become
unrecognizable. People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from
women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like
wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders,
love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to
distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of
the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed
will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret
deeds and murder will rule in society. At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and
licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism
and equally of remorse. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe
to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will
lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate
themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere
they will meet obstacles and constraints. And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be
Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and
fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by
which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time
men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they
have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls,
that it is deceit of the Antichrist. And, the impious one! -- he will so complete science with vanity that it
will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases. Then the
All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few
who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible...
then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter and his servants."

In essence the prophecy has basically said that Catholics (those who are orthodox in the faith) would
change the traditions and morals of the Church and specifically points out that one of these is *modesty*. It
even remarkably states that with these new fashions you could not see the difference between the masculine
and feminine clothing as to blur what sex the person was. Also that if you tried to correct these people that
they would feel no shame in what they were doing, and classify it as the norm or at least trivial. If you tried
to ask advice from the Catholic Pastor, although good with knowing dogma, they would fail to distinguish
the "right-hand way from the left" in morality. These are wicked times and we need to, "Therefore,
brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle," (2
Thess. ii, 14), if we are ever going to be saved, despite the reluctance our Pastors have to condemn these
modern fashions right up from the beginning of this century. In their giving us the "greenlight" in these
matters, "easing" our conscience, they are doing more harm than the apparent good. People forget that
although the Saints might have differed on different points of dogmatic doctrine (prior to the Church
explicitly ending the differences with a magisterial decree), they all agreed as to what was modest in attire.
There was not a single Canonized Saint or Church Father who deviated from the decency code in over 1800
years. We as Catholics are not allowed to differ from their perspectives. We are to condemn and to condone
what they condemned and condoned. It is when we deviate from THEIR NORM, that we can say we are no
longer of their One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Faith. For in order to be Catholic we must be of the same
religious body, and in order to be of the same body, we must profess the same religion of Christ in Faith
*and* morals. We must use the traditions and habits of the Saints, that they all had in common, throughout
the centuries of the Church. If we fail in achieving this common denominator, we can expect to fail in
achieving our Supernatural End as well.

- CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS -

Immodesty and Women Wearing Men's

Clothing

by Marian Therese Horvat, Ph.D.

Mrs. X was a daily communicant, a pious Catholic living in Quito, Ecuador, in the 1960s.
As a lady of certain elegance, she was naturally influenced by the styles of the times.
However, as a well bred traditional-minded Catholic, she would never wear men's
trousers or a skirt above her knees.

One day as she arrived at the magnificent Jesuit Church of Jesu in downtown Quito, she
realized that she had left her jacket at home. She made a quick decision that it would be
better to receive Our Lord wearing the sleeveless blouse than to remain in the pew and
only make a spiritual Communion. After all, she rationalized, the neckline was modest
and her skirt was quite appropriate.

The serene and kindly pastor arrived at Mrs. X at the Communion rail. He leaned over as
if to give her the Sacred Host. But instead of giving her Communion, he discreetly and
firmly whispered into her ear, "Next time, sleeves."

There was no public humiliation. No one but Mrs. X and the priest knew what had
happened. But interiorly humiliated to the very bone, she accepted the correction and, as
she affirmed to me when she told the story, she has never appeared inappropriately
dressed again in a church. It was a just and charitable correction, in keeping with the old
Canon Law which prescribed that women should be modestly dressed, especially when
they approach the Holy Table [Canon 1262.2]. 1

It is a simple story that throws light on just how far the revolution in women's clothing
has gone in these forty years of post-conciliar ecclesiastical life. The simple "peccadillo"
of being sleeveless would hardly seem worthy of notice today. How many good-willed
women and girls come to church and approach the Communion rail ---- or "line" ----
wearing immodest clothe that overexpose the figure? The typical daily or Sunday Mass is
assisted by women in tops that are low cut and revealing, blouses that an transparent and
sleeveless dresses too short and pants too tight-fitting, and even shorts and cut-offs.

Comfort and convenience are the common excuses given ---- if excuses are even
bothered with ---- for this lack of consideration of God and the honor due Him.
Somehow the inappropriately dressed woman has become convinced that Christ will be
so pleased to see her there in His house that standards of Catholic modesty and decorum
can be ignored and transgressed. In fact, if a courageous priest would ask these women
and girls to dress appropriately, in keeping with the holiness
and dignity of the place, most probably he would be the one considered to be out of
line . . .

A Forgotten Culpability

But, the woman in shorts might explain, the styles have changed. Clothing has become
more relaxed and informal since the revolution of the '60s. That is to say, what was
inappropriate in the past is considered appropriate now.
What has been forgotten is that there is always an unchangeable moral norm to be
preserved in modesty of dress. No one is allowed to relax modesty for reasons of summer
heat, the current styles of fashion, or mere convenience. Pope Pius XII clearly stated that
the excuse that modesty is dictated by custom or time cannot be allowed. He called it
"one of the most insidious of sophisms" used "in order to brand as old fashioned the
rebellion of honest people against fashions which are
too bold." 2

Many people have also become oblivious to the grave consequences of adopting the
immodest fashion trends. That such styles would appear was predicted by Our Lady at
Fatima in 1917, when She told the youngest seer, Jacinta: "Certain fashions will be
introduced which will offend My Son very much. More people go to Hell because of sins
of the flesh than for any other reason." Her words seem to indicate a direct correlation
between the fashions that would be introduced ---- which we are all familiar with ----
and the souls who go to Hell bbecause of the sins of the flesh.

Another very serious consequence often infuriates the modern women when it is
mentioned. Nonetheless, it needs to be said. Immodest dress can lead men into sin, and
thus the woman who dresses immodestly will bear some degree of culpability both for
her own transgressions and for the sins others commit because of them. Pope Pius XII
addressed this topic already in the '50s: "How many girls there are who do not see any
wrongdoing in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep. They certainly
would blush if they could guess the impression they make and the feelings they evoke in
those who see them." 3

Today, unfortunately, there does not seem to be much of that healthful blushing to which
the great Pope refers. Instead, one of the curious consequences of a society that denies the
existence of Original Sin has been a naive ignorance of so many "good" Catholic young
women regarding the effects that can result from their insistence on following immodest
fashions.

The battle to keep the passions in check is continual for both men and women, but it must
be waged with particular vigilance by men. A woman cannot dress immodestly just to be
in style and then say that if a man thinks immoral thoughts because of her, it's his
problem, not hers. This attitude is rooted in the great lie of the Women's Liberation
movement that men and women are equal. In fact there are great differences between
men and women. The man by nature is more aggressive and wants to conquer, and his
sensual reactions are stronger than that of the woman. If a woman is immodestly dressed,
a man's inclinations more readily develop into desires, thoughts and actions of lust.
Therefore, while the man has a moral obligation to "fight the good fight" against sins of
the flesh by practicing a careful custody of the eyes and thoughts, a woman has a moral
obligation not to dress in an immodest manner which would lead a man to sin.

There is an especial distinction to make here. Woman by nature likes to adorn herself in
order to be admired for her beauty, charm and elegance. This is not an evil in itself. A
beautiful and charming girl or woman does not have the obligation to make herself ugly
or dress in plain and uncomely clothing so that she will never run the risk of causing a
sin. This puritanical type of thinking, which unfortunately has been adopted by some
traditionalist Catholic women or our day is erroneous. There is nothing necessarily sinful
or inappropriate in a women dressing exquisitely and femininely. It is this charm and
beauty of femininity that adorns an authentically Catholic society.

One of the most dominant errors that underlies today's revolutionary spirit in clothing is
egalitarianism. This egalitarian revolution has stimulated a constant process to do away
with almost all differences in sex and in age. The very notion is absurd, because these
inequalities exist in nature itself.

One factor that played a large role in the "feminist revolution" was women adopting the
dress of men. That women should dress differently from men, as a symbol of their
distinct roles in the home and society, is affirmed by Scripture: "A woman shall not be
clothed in man's apparel ---- neither shall a man use a woman's apparel . . . such are
abominable before God." [Deut. 22: 55] That is to say, clothing is not an indifferent topic
or a simple matter of covering the body. I know many tradtionalists who have argued it is
a matter of modesty that women should always wear skirts. I believe that this argument is
faulty, since it can be claimed that at times modest and loose fitting trousers cover a
woman's body more completely than do some fashionable skirts and dresses.

However, there is a much more profound principle at stake here. The promoters of the
feminist revolution encouraged women to abandon their traditional dress that emphasized
the delicate and feminine aspect of women. In the name of efficiency, comfort, modernity
---- women donned the pants of men. Along with the trousers of men, in their tendencies,
they came to take up the ways of being and sitting and walking of men. they entered the
workplace, joined the road crews, trained in the army, and even are invading the
sanctuaries.

The motive that impelled women to wear men's dress brought about a mental attitude of
being "like a man." An ironic side note is that with this frantic attempt to be masculine
instead of striving to perfect their femininity, women unconsciously admit a
dissatisfaction with their womanhood and, ultimately, God's plan for creation. This
unnatural imitation destroys the complementarity of the sexes, whereby the woman and
man complete and fulfIll each other; instead it sets up a relationship of competition.

This kind of erroneous and revolutionary way of thinking naturally found expression in
clothing. The "pantsuit revolution" progressed to blue jeans, and has ended in the
appearance of androgynous youth. Something more serious has occurred than the fact
that the youth are dressed in the same clothing: the young woman's whole way of being
appears to be almost more masculine than that of the young man.

The primary reason I would encourage good-spirited reasoning women to always wear
dresses is to fight this egalitarian urge that would level the sexes and smash any symbolic
expression of the marvelous natural differences placed there by God. This is to concretely
and heroically counter the egalitarian revolution that ultimately represents a tearing down
of the human order established by God.

Two Prophetic Warnings

Already in June of 1960, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa sent this discerning warning to
his Diocesan priests about the increasing use of men's trousers by women and the
foreboding dangers this represented. He begins the circular with these words: "The first
sins of late arriving spring indicate that there is this year a certain increase in the use of
men's dress by girls and women, even family mothers." He notes with a certain shock that
it is no longer just the American women tourists who have begun to wear men's trousers
in public, but his good Catholic Genoese women. It is not the issue of immodesty per se
that most concerns him, but a graver threefold result: "First, the wearing of men's dress
by women affects the woman herself, by changing the feminine psychology proper to
women; second, it affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate
relationships between the sexes; and third, it affects the woman as mother of her children
by harming her dignity in her children's eyes . . . This changing of the feminine
psychology does fundamental, and, in the long run, irreparable damage to the family, to
conjugal fidelity, to human affections and to human society." 4

Today we are witnesses of that "fundamental and irreparable damage" that the Cardinal
warned would happen with the changing of the feminine psychology. In passing, I
mention here a subject that could be analyzed in another article: In the trail of the
masculinization of women came the feminization of men. As women usurped the
headship of the family, relationships in the entire family were disoriented. Children were
deprived of their natural role models and confusion followed. Both sexes suffered a loss
of identity. At the university where I taught, I was constantly shocked to see how much
effort and time was given over to the discussion of "what it means to be a man" and
"what it means to be a woman." These would be moot points for these youths'
grandparents, who would be amazed to see so much high level academic discussion about
such evident first principles.

Cardinal Siri also asked his priests to speak out on the topic of women dressing like men:
"They must know they must never be so weak as to let anyone believe that they turn a
blind eye to the custom which is slipping downhill and undermining the moral standing
of all institutions." Their action to correct this fault should be "sharp and decisive." His
words indicate that the fathers of families should also be alert to correcting this
revolutionary custom.

Cardinal Siri then invited those in the fashion industry to find suitable but dignified
solutions as to clothing for women when they "must use a motorcycle or engage in this or
that exercise or work." "What matters most," he quite judiciously observed, "is to
preserve modesty along with the eternal sense of femininity. For that, good sense and
good taste should always find acceptable and dignified solutions to problems as they
come up." That very few dress designers or couturiers have accepted this invitation
should not be a motive for discouragement for the present generations, but a challenge to
take it up.

A Revolutionary Process

The revolution in women's clothing and the accompanying change of mentality was not
some spectacular and isolated incident. It was a process that gradually rooted itself in the
customs and then began to dominate the culture. Little by little, women and men became
accustomed to increasingly immodest and revolutionary clothing trends.

A very respectable lady whom I know gave me a trenchant example of the process at
work: She said that when trousers for women began to be stylish, at first she resisted.
They would be fine to wear at home, she decided, but never in public. A little later, she
changed her mind: a nice slacks suit [the poly-
ester pantsuit of the 60's] worn in public was not offensive, but women should never wear
trousers to Mass. Just a little later, it didn't seem so horrible to wear a pair of modest,
tailored slacks to Mass ---- it was certainly better than tthe short skirts that had become
the fashion of the moment. The door opened an inch, and it wasn't long before it was
wide open . . .

How much responsibility do we bear for the indecent and immodest trends and
androgynous fashions of the day? It seems to me that the culpability belongs at least in
part to the lethargic compliance of many Catholics to this revolutionary process that has
completely transformed sound customs.

When we consider the restoration of Christian Civilization, there is a tendency for serious
Catholics today to turn almost strictly to the religious plane and one's personal prayer life
to initiate this restoration. To pray another novena or add another devotion to the
mandatory daily Rosary are excellent things and should always be encouraged. It is
extremely important not to sin against chastity, to follow the Commandments, to read
edifying religious books. But there is another true duty of the spiritual life that has been
ignored: that is, to fight the bad customs, revolutionary clothing and ways of being -and
especially the immodest and egalitarian clothing that make up a significant part of the
total corruption of customs that Our Lady forewarned would dominate in our times.

FOOTNOTES:
1. The Sacred Congregation of the Council issued a letter in 1930 by the mandate of Pope Pius XI that
included this prescription: "#9. Maidens and women dressed immodestly are to be debarred from Holy
Communion . . . Further, if the offense be extreme, they may even be forbidden to enter the church."
Donato, Cardinal Sbaretti, Prefect of the Cong. for the Council, Rome, January 12, 1930.
2. Address to the Latin Union of High Fashion, November 8, 1957.
3. Address to the International Congress of the Children of Mary Immaculate, July 17, 1954.
4. Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, Notification concerning Men's Dress Worn by Women, Genoa, June 12, 1960.
It is unbelievable to know that some churches (especially the orthodox ones) still
condemn the wearing of trousers by ladies. They have so over emphasized on
Deuteronomy 22:6. What is this verse really saying about a woman's outfit?

Deuteronomy 22:6 states "A man should not wear a woman's clothes, nor a woman
should wear a man's clothes for this is an act of abomination unto the Lord". From this
verse, some churches condemn the wearing of Trousers by Ladies. Some Bible Scholars
argue that in those days of the law both Men and women wear robes and maybe, tie ropes
round their waists, depending on the occasion. Therefore, in terms of style of dressing or
fashion, the only difference is the head-gear. Men wrap their heads with a piece of cloth,
looking like a Turban fashion (the way the Arabs dress). While the ladies wear a veil or
tie scarf. If this is the case, then the emphasis was not really on the fashion. We may
logically conclude that the Lord is saying "What the man has worn, the woman should
not wear it and vice versa, because it disgusts Him. In fact some study Bible Versions put
this verse as "women must not pretend to be men, and men must not pretend to be
women. The Lord your God is disgusted with people who do that". So, maybe, the
emphasis is not just superficially placed on the clothes alone but as well conduct.

Let's leave theology aside and look at it critically on a contextual point of view. What is a
woman's cloth? If you as a Pastor condemn women wearing Trousers because of this
verse, then I am as well justified to buy you a lady's suit with its well fitted trousers as a
gift, would you appreciate it? Definitely No.! Then why? It is because it is a woman's
cloth; simple! We try to help the Bible to be too specific and thereby neglecting the actual
sense it is making, though cultures differ in different regions of the world. We still find
some churches holding on to this doctrine. What then are we going to say to the Cultural
or traditional wears of the Scottish men who wear skirts? Or in the African tradition
where men tie wrappers, naturally meant for only women? Our main focus should be
decency in dressing. There are some skirts a lady would wear that it would have been
better for them to wear a trouser. Decency in dressing which portrays a Christ like
appearance irrespective of the fashion or style or outfit should be our focal point. So
therefore, a decently dressed lady on a pair of trousers should not be condemned or seen
as a stubborn Christian or even as a sinner.

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Question: "What does it mean to dress modestly?"

Answer: In describing the mode of dress appropriate for women in church, the apostle
Paul exhorts them to dress “modestly” with “decency and propriety” then goes on to
contrast immodest dress with the good deeds which are appropriate for those who profess
to be true worshipers of God (1 Timothy 2:9-10). Modesty in the way we dress is not just
for church; it is to be the standard for all Christians at all times. The key to understanding
what constitutes modesty in dress is to examine the attitudes and intents of the heart.
Those whose hearts are inclined toward God will make every effort to dress modestly,
decently, and appropriately. Those whose hearts are included toward self will dress in a
manner designed to draw attention to themselves with little or no regard for the
consequences to themselves or others.

A godly woman endeavors to do everything with a “God-ward” perspective. She knows

that God wants His people to be concerned for His glory and the spiritual state of their
brothers and sisters in Christ. If a woman professes to be a Christian and yet she dresses
in a way that will unduly draw attention to her body, she is a poor witness of the One who
bought her soul by dying for her on the cross. She is forgetting that her body has been
redeemed by Christ and is now the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). She
is telling the world that she sees her own worth as purely physical and that her
attractiveness to others depends on how much of her body she reveals to them. Further,
by dressing in an immodest fashion, displaying her body for men to lust after, she causes
her brothers in Christ to sin, something condemned by God (Matthew 5:27-29). Proverbs
7:10 mentions a woman “dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent.” Here we see the
description of one whose heart condition is displayed by her manner of dress.

The Scripture says that a woman is to dress modestly, but what exactly does that mean in
modern society? Does a woman have to be covered from head to toe? There are cults and
religions in the world that demand this of women. But is that the biblical meaning of
modesty? Again, we have to go back to the matter of the attitudes of the heart. If a
woman’s heart is inclined toward godliness, she will wear clothing that is neither
provocative nor revealing in public, clothing that does not reflect negatively upon her
personal testimony as a child of God. Even when everyone else in her circle is dressing
immodestly, she resists the temptation to go along with the crowd. She knows these types
of clothes are designed to draw attention to her body and cause men to lust, but she is
wise enough to know that type of attention only cheapens her. The idea of causing men to
sin against God because of her dress is abhorrent to her because she seeks to love and
honor God and wants others to do the same. Modesty in dress reveals a modesty and
godliness of the heart, attitudes that should be the desire of all women who live to please
and honor God.