02-11-2021, 09:45 PM
Chapter 1 (Part 5)
There is such a large collection of statements made, especially by this holy Pope Pius XII, that we could not begin to include them all but we will include those that we feel most important here for your consideration. In 1952, speaking to the women of Belgium, Pope Pius XII said, “You live in a world that attacks your faith and purity in a thousand ways. You must fight vigorously against a hostile world penetrated by paganism.” It is an absolute necessity that we fight against this tide and overcome the evil that has seduced the world into lukewarmness. Jesus warned us about lukewarmness! We must become martyrs. Martyrs of Purity! We must be willing to ‘go to war’ and as insignificant as we think we are, God will make use of us if we let Him. Our lives touch more people than we are aware. Only in heaven will we see the good that we have done, and the people’s lives we have touched.
One of the places where we have the ability to affect someone’s life significantly is among children. As parents, we play a great role when it comes to preserving their modesty and purity. Pope Pius XII tells us, “O Christian mothers (and fathers), if only you knew the future of distress and peril, of shame ill-restrained, that you prepare for your sons and daughters in imprudently accustoming them to live hardly clothed and in making them lose the sense of modesty, you would be ashamed of yourselves and of the harm you have done the little ones whom Heaven has entrusted to your care, to be reared in Christian dignity and culture.” This is a frightening statement if we consider the heavy responsibility this places on us in the eyes of God. We have been duped into thinking that scantily clad infants are okay. It is customary to see semi-nude attired on infants but we, as Catholic parents, should rethink this issue. It should not be the norm. Is it any wonder that there is so much skin cancer in society today? A lifetime of semi-nude attire could be cause of this, I am sure. But, more than that, children remember so well. How can we expect them to dress modestly as teenagers if they see pictures and remember wearing little infant bikinis? The pull of society and their peers is great. We will help them to resist if we teach our children as infants to dress properly, no matter the weather. If they grow up this way, it will not be so difficult for them to turn down the ridiculous fashions that present themselves today as normal. You will reap the rewards of modest living by starting your children out on the right foot, instilling in them a reverence for their bodies, which are temples of the Holy Ghost. This will help them grow into pure and chaste adults. The world today will tell parents differently. Recently, in the Sept/Oct. 99’ edition of Mothering magazine is an article entitled ‘Touch Taboos’ which goes on to state that nudity is a good thing saying, “..the more something is forbidden, the more piqued a child’s curiosity will be..” The article continues like this with explicit language, that I will not repeat. The conclusion of the article is that there should be no fear of nudity..that is it is all our ‘covering up’ that has caused much of the molestation, etc…that we are only now finding out about. How absolutely ludicrous! Can you imagine how upside-down Satan has turned our world to think that families being nude together would solve such a problem? This is a simple example of how deeply Satan has infected our completely blinded society!
In 1956, Archbishop Albert G. Meyer of Milwaukee, Wisconsin stated in a Pastoral Letter, “…Everyone knows that during the summer months particularly, things are seen here and there which are certain to prove offensive to anyone who has retained some respect and regard for Christian virtue and human modesty…often even in buildings dedicated to God, an unworthy and indecent mode of dress has prevailed..Feminine clothing, if that can be called clothing which contains nothing to protect either the body or modesty, is at times of such a nature that it seems to serve lewdness rather than modesty.” We live in a rural area here, thank God, and are largely protected from the immodesty of the cities. But no sooner do we enter the limits of the city, than we are bombarded with lewd advertisements on billboards, or if we dare go into a shopping mall, we must pass lingerie shops, or stores with embarrassing items at the counter or these items even discarded on our very sidewalks! It is not safe for children to be exposed to these places! We keep away from them at all costs since society has simply gone insane with sexuality. Its virus is spread everywhere waiting to snare the least expected and especially the innocent ones!
By 1957, Pope Pius XII summed up the problem by saying, “there exists an absolute norm to be preserved in modesty in dress.” This norm, then, should not be affected by style or custom since both style and custom has been known to go wrong! If modesty is out of style it must still be practiced!
A holy priest who devoted his life to combating immodesty and from whom I take most of my inspiration is the late Rev. Bernard A. Kunkel. As late as 1969 Fr. Kunkel fought against immodest dress. He wrote, “One of strange phenomena of history is the fact that the devil has succeeded so well in keeping concealed the existence of the corrupting body of Satan with its long-range program for the destruction of the Church…The corrupting body of Satan still exists in our time and is very well organized in its efforts to use the modern fashions, filthy literature, indecent movies, pagan TV shows, drugs, drink, (and may I add filthy music. Ed.) etc. to break down morality among Catholics in order eventually to destroy the Church and Christianity…But the Devil could not hope to corrupt completely Christ’s Mystical Body, the Catholic Church, unless he could first succeed in dethroning Mary, the Mother Most Chaste, from the hearts of Catholics.” In 1944, Fr. Kunkel founded the Purity Crusade of Mary Immaculate with the Episcopal Blessing of the late Bishop Henry Althoff. Pope Pius XII imparted his Apostolic Blessing I 1954 and again in 1955. Using the dress guides from Pope Pius XI he developed the following guidelines; “Marylike dresses have sleeves extending at least to the elbows, and skirts reaching below the knees (eight inches)…Marylike dresses require full coverage for the bodice, chest, shoulders, and back, except for a cut-out about the neck not exceeding two inches below the neckline in front and in back, and a corresponding two inches on the shoulders…they do not admit as modest coverage, transparent fabrics – laces, nets, organdy, nylons, etc. – unless sufficient backing is added..avoid the improper use of flesh coloured fabrics…dresses should conceal rather than reveal the figure of the wearer, they do not emphasize, unduly, parts of the body.”
“The world, the flesh and the devil have teamed up in an all-out attempt to undermine the virtue of purity by battering down its safeguard which is modesty in dress. Mothers must again become mirrors of modesty if the victory over the devil’s scheming is to be won.” How many mothers, unknowingly, have encouraged their young daughters in immodesty? By themselves wearing tight fitting mini skirts for work or seeking to be in style they have silently told their daughters that this type of wear is “okay”. When a child argues, “Well my mother wears this.” Or worse, “Well my mother bought this for me.” We can see that these children have been misled by their own mothers. Please, dear mothers, inform yourselves on this issue, teach it to your children, especially your daughters. Help them to understand it too. Help them to love modesty and to seek to grow in it. If you have already misled them, confess your wrong and begin to make these changes in your own life, explaining to your own children why you are doing this, perhaps giving them this book if they are old enough. But do not accept defeat, because Satan will try his best to interfere with any progress one makes for modesty since he knows it is the key to the salvation of man. Call upon Our Lady to guide you!
Pope John XXIII, when he was Papal Legate to France found himself at a scrumptious banquet seated beside a woman with a very low-cut dress. Everyone watched to see what he would do. When apples were passed around, he graciously offered one to the woman next to him, but she refused. But he insisted, “But you must eat it for it was only after Eve ate the apple that she realized that she was naked.” Imagine the shock, but moreso, what more perfect words for such a situation!
In 1960, Cardinal Siri, thought it necessary to explain the dangers of men’s dress worn by women and released a document of the same title that same year. We think this is one of the most important documents and so we have included it in full in Appendix Two. In it he went on to explain in side and clear reasons why this is so wrong and such a danger to society. He cited three basic reasons which we will look on in our chapter on the Disappearance of True Womanhood and Femininity.