Modesty in Dressing

“It might be said that society speaks through the clothing it wears. Through its clothing it reveals its secret aspirations and uses it, at least in part, to build or destroy its future.”   – Ven. Pope Pius XII

“One cannot minimize the importance of style’s influence for good or for evil. The language of clothing, as we have already said, is more effective when it is more ordinary and is understood by everyone. It might be said that society speaks through the clothing it wears. Through its clothing it reveals its secret aspirations and uses it, at least in part, to build or destroy its future.”   – Ven. Pope Pius XII

“The more elegant you will be, and the more pleasing, if you dress with simplicity and discreet modesty. There is no point dressing modestly for Catholic church Mass on Sundays and immodestly everywhere else. God is everywhere and lust can be stirred within the men in the church as well as outside of the church. We do not wish to be stumbling blocks and tempt our brothers to sin.”   – Ven. Pope Pius XII

“The wearing of men’s dress by women affects firstly the woman herself, by changing the feminine psychology proper to women; secondly it affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate relationships between the sexes; thirdly it affects the woman as mother of her children by harming her dignity in her children’s eyes.

The clothing a person wears, demands, imposes and modifies that person’s gestures, attitudes and behavior, such that from merely being worn outside, clothing comes to impose a particular frame of mind inside. Therefore, wearing (unisex fashions) is the visible aid to bringing about a mental attitude of being ‘like a man,’ and to some degree indicates her reacting to her femininity as though it is inferiority when in fact it is only diversity.

Out of charity we are fighting against the flattening out of mankind, against the attack upon those differences on which rests the complementarity of man and woman.  When we see a woman in trousers, we should think not so much of her, as of all mankind, of what it will be when women will have masculinized themselves for good.  Nobody stands to gain by helping to bring about a future age of vagueness, ambiguity, imperfection and, in a word, monstrosities.”   – Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, Archbishop of Genoa