Catholic Moral Dress Code
Prakash J. Mascarenhas, Bombay, India. 13th October 2002.
Please Note: This is meant to be merely a position paper, a postulation, and is not meant for general circulation. It may, however, be circulated with discretion, in order to verify or disprove, the positions delineated in it.
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your letter of 10th October 2002, in response to my mail of Fr. Chris Vaillancourt's post on the Canadian Catholics Message Group.
Fr. Vaillancourt has not taken the trouble to send you this message, nor has he moved me to this end. He is entirely ignorant of your reception of this message, and therefore ought not to be reproached for it.
It is I who took the initiative to send it, because I agree - largely, though not entirely, with its contents. I sent it to you so that you could, if you saw it fit, post it to all your correspondents. However, I did not of myself post it to any other person except to you (and, if my memory serves me right, to Pale Horse, another of my e-correspondents) because I was not sure of the message in its entirety, and I thought that it needs modification. I agree with some of your objections, but not all. Good ladies, permit this 'dead horse' (no offense meant) to state his position, as best as I can...
My principal objection to Vaillancourt's views is the implication that the Christian religion confines women to the domestic state. I do not agree. I believe that while in the Social order of the Church, women are subordinated by God to their menfolk, it does not imply that they are, in fact, their inferiors in intellect or capabilities. Many Christian men, mistaking the Bible, run the risk of de facto misogyny. It must be avoided by recourse to sense, reason and the teaching of the Church.
It may be that a woman is superior to her husband in mind, skills, morality, etc. Nevertheless, she is to be subject, within the bounds of morality, to her husband. The Church, and therefore all people, have the obligation to interpret the bounds of morality very strictly, for otherwise, men think that they are the owners of their women and that they are merely their chattels, to be used as they fancy. Men must be strictly held to their obligation. The morality of a Society is proved by its ability to hold its members - both men and women - to a high standard of behaviour, and which imposes successfully salutary and effective sanctions on those who subvert order, whether by choice or negligence.
The natural and biological end for the existence of women is to bear and nurture children. However, this cannot be their exclusive end, and their right to development and freedom as human beings must be assured. However, again, this must be contrasted with the real end - procreation and the nurturing and education of children, and a compromise must be crafted, without however, injuring the main end. Otherwise, because of a woman's desire to establish her own identity, carve out her own place in the world and discover her 'destiny,' her offspring, who, by natural inclination, look up to her, first of all, even before their fathers, will suffer and be injured in the formation of their humanity. Therefore, this calls for a sacrifice from women.
But if men require that women sacrifice themselves for their children, then men too must necessarily make sacrifices for their wives. They must not take their wives for granted, they must respect their privacy and strive to protect her privacy and right to privacy and to have times apart, even from their children. Moreover, I have seen from personal experience, that women who are entirely homebound, intellectually stultify. Therefore, for keeping their minds keen, it is necessary for them also, as it is for men, to always be part of and partake of the Social Intercourse of mankind. This only can keep their minds sharp so that they can remain intelligent and can pass on their intelligence to their children.
But this is not all. The Bible itself does not suggest that women be confined to domesticism only. The best and most famous, and I think, best loved, eulogy of a good woman, by Biblical Standards, is that of Proverbs 31: 10-31 - a woman who exerts herself, not only for her home and her loved ones, but also conducts a successful business. Certainly not all women are called to be businesswomen, in addition to be homemakers, but this remains the standard that we look up to.
Here again, we must understand that we should not create foolish expectations of our wives, and realise further that our womenfolk cannot walk alone or achieve greatness alone, with our help and assistance. This too calls for men to make sacrifices for their wives.
As for dress, I agree entirely with Vaillancourt on the matter of pants. I personally find women in pants, not trousers usually, but in jeans and especially in tight jeans or trousers, has an immediate effect on me, arousing sexual desire. On the other hand, modestly demurely dressed women, do not evoke that same feeling in me. It takes a greater effort on my part to avoid this evil when provoked thus.
I agree that I have no right to universalize my own personal experiences and opinions, and impose them as that of God or of His Church. Nevertheless, I believe that my interpretation is in conformity with that of the Church.
It is true that dress - both male and female, have varied over the ages and according to peoples. That however, does not change the fact that certain styles of garments are designed to sexually provoke while other garments do not.
The specific Scriptural text, from Deuteronomy, assigned by God to Moses, and which Vaillancourt mistakenly attributes to our Lord during his earthly mission, says: Men shall not wear woman's clothings and women shall not wear men's clothings, for he who does this is an abomination to me."
Unfortunately, the Bible does not specify what exactly constitutes woman's clothing and what constitutes men's clothing. This is for the Church, then, to specify. However, while I am confident that the Church has pronounced upon this subject time and again, I am not aware of any Magisterial pronouncement on this subject. But I am nevertheless confident that my own experience is indicative of the universal fact: that women in pants are immodest.
I will remind you that when women first began to wear pants there was a storm of protests and men were divided into two camps - for and against. Those for, were, honestly speaking, in favour because they were libertinists, immoral men. And those against were largely opposed to it on moral grounds. Nor has this debate been ended; it is only muted by time.
It is also true, as you contend, that it is not entirely a woman's fault that a man lusts after her. After all, we men too have free will and make our own choices - we can, if we want to, lust after a woman dressed perfectly modestly, and ignore, if we want, a woman dressed provocatively. However, a woman who is dressed immodestly is more prone to provoke sexually a man than a woman who is dressed modestly. Therefore, despite the good man ignoring the immodest woman and the bad man lusting after the modest woman, women are still under the moral obligation to dress modestly.
And, while Vaillancourt has not spoken on the matter, it still remains true that men too have an obligation to dress modestly. However, most men, by nature, do not provoke sexual arousal, though they can achieve this effect by deliberate effort. I am not an expert at this, for I have not attempted to study this 'art,' but I do know that it is being done.
When I posted Vaillancourt's message to you, the page clearly had been identified as the Canadian Catholics Message Group. There is no reason for Canadians to sing US patriotic songs, no more, I think, than for New Zealanders to sing Australian patriotic songs. As for the IRA, I am entirely with them. Despite the hypocrisy of Frederic Forsyth, the self-constituted defender of Biafran rights against English perfidy, and the WASPs, (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants), morality and justice is on the side of Eire.
In a part of Eire, Protestants from the Scotch Lallands and from England have been settled, and constitute a colony. When Eire, after resisting England's imperialism and colonialism, was granted the right to self-determination, it chose independence. However, England has illegally retained a part of Eire, mainly the larger part of the province of Ulster, where the Irish are discriminated, terrorized and dehumanised for their Catholic heritage. The resistance of the Irish, whether of the IRA, or of the RIRA is moral and just. It is as moral and just as that of the Timorese. And England's right in this territory is just as moral and just as Indonesia's right in Timor Lorosae, or the Indian Union's right in my own homeland, Portuguese India.
I call Forsyth a hypocrite because, while he supports the cause of the Biafrans, which is just, he opposes the equally just cause of the Irish. That is because of his loyalty to his tribe and clan, the WASPs. His loyalty distorts his sense of justice.
As for terrorism: what do one mean by that? One man's terrorism is another man's lawful warfare. The Americans and their lackeys, the so-called Free World, has had no compunctions whatsoever, in aiding and abetting the Serb Muslim traitors in their treaonable enterprise of carving out a Muslim homeland for themselves, and in terrorising the Serb Orthodox resistance to this treason by the governments of Serbia, Montenegro, Yugoslavia and by the Serb Orthodox general populace. It has no compunction in attacking schools, hospitals, radio and television stations, attacking purely civilian targets to terrorize the Serb Orthodox so that they would desist from their natural and just resistance to Muslim treason.
The English committed Genocide in Scotland: The Catholic Highlanders, for resisting them, were exterminated and the remainder rounded up and shipped out to Australia, Canada and New England: Pacification. Today, in all Europe, it is only Scotland whose population is lower than its population five hundred years ago.
The English committed Genocide in Eire, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Nor is this exhaustive. Remember that with a few exceptions, the Spanish or Portuguese did not set out to exterminate the aborigine populations of the New World, but Christianized and intermarried with them. What the English did was terrorism. America continues from where England, exhausted at the end of World War II, left off.
Following in the footsteps of its harlot mother, harlot America, the New Babylon, fashioned on the pattern of pagan Rome, complete with Capitols and Senators, set out to bait, to divide and to conquer, steal and colonize the Catholic lands of New Spain and New Granada, balkanising them into a hundred different independent states - Banana Republics, always squabbling among themselves, while the oversmart cat lords over them.
As for targetting civilians, why, when the English and the Americans can do it, cannot those who resist them do it? Why is it terrorism if the IRA or the RIRA do it, but not if the English or the American goverments do it? Are the English and the Americans gods, descended from heaven, deigning to dwell amidst us?
One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. And, in my understanding, there is the same moral justification for the Biblical injunction to entirely exterminate the homosexual Canaanites, for the Crusades against Islam and against the heretics, the Inquisitions and other Christian efforts to destroy the Cathari, Albigensians, Waldensians, Protestants, etc., for the US bombing of Japan (though not for the selection of Nagasaki), for the Spanish and Portuguese "ethnic cleansing of Iberia by the expulsion of the Moors, and likewise for that of the Serb Orthodox against the Serb Muslims - the mythical nation of the Bosniacs, etc.
I specifically support the freedom struggles of the Irish, the Basque, the Corsicans and Occitans, the Quebecois, the Kurds and Armenians, the Nagas and the Bru-Chin, Karen, Kayenni, Shans, and Hmong, the Puerto Ricans, the Tibetans, the West Papuans, the Moluccans, Tamil Eelam, the Chakmas, etc. I support the cause of the aborigine nations of the New World in their struggle for recognition of their rights. I reject the causes of the "Palestinians," Arakanese, Achinese, Kashmiri, Chechens, as also the Japanese claim that Russia should return to it the islands of Kunashiro, etc. Re. Taiwan: I do not accept China's pretensions, but I also recognize that the Taiwanese are not the indigenous people, but Chinese colonists.
Unity in Representing the Church
I see that it is necessary for us to harmonise our own private beliefs with, or to put it another way, we need to Conform them to the teachings of the Church, and that we need to trash out differences of opinions in all those matters where we do not know the exact teaching of the Church or if there is indeed a declared position, for otherwise we will cause confusion to others.
Finally, I think that the best position on this matter (of women's position in Christianity) is expressed by the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Yours sincerely,
Prakash Mascarenhas