In my ordination vows I was required to say the following: "I will always tell people what they want to hear, and will do everything in my power to make friends with each parishioner, never offending or upsetting anyone". No, actually, that is completely false. My vows did, however, require me to preach the truth in every situation. I took that vow, and that means that I am expected to obey it. Which leads me to the following point: there are times when I have to say something that I do not want to say. This is one of those times. I do not want to have to speak about immodesty, but it is spreading in our society like a plague.
It was Bp. Athanasius Schneider who said recently that, "there is a mentality of radical relativism within the Church". He was speaking about many things in that comment, and it would not take anyone long to come up with a Catholic truth that has been attacked lately by relativistic compromise. Today, we see so many areas of "radical relativism" that I almost do not know where to start. Modesty, however, has become very "relative" in modern society and the subject pops up every year with the arrival of summer. What one person considers to be modest another considers to be immodest; this only happens when we have been tainted with relativism. Today, immodesty has become the norm and only a few Catholics seem to be aware of it.
It took a long time for us to arrive at this state of affairs. What was immodest just a century ago is now the commonplace; how is that supposed to be acceptable? I have heard Catholics say directly to me "as long as you love Jesus, what does it matter what you wear to Church?" What most people miss when they read that previous sentence is the reality that the very comment itself is immodest. The fact that a comment like "as long as you love Jesus" would be considered gravely immoral to the vast majority of our forefathers should be enough to make us feel ashamed; but shame is a lost art.
There was a time when I thought that I could get by without saying anything; that was naive. To say nothing is to encourage the status quo. Yet, to attempt to be gentle but honest is going to invite attacks that I am a "prude" or an "old fuddy-duddy". I am thankful that the instances I have encountered at my three current parishes are small by comparison with things I have seen in the past. If, however, I do not make it clear now, the course of society shows that it is going to get out of hand.
So then, let me be as clear and direct as I can: we live in an immoral and immodest society, and we have become so used to it, that now even many Catholics can be heard defending the immodesty. This should not be. No, the Church does not have dress codes in Canon Law, but the Catechism does say that "purity requires modesty" and that "modesty is decency" (CCC 2521, 2522). In other words, Church dogma says that there is a standard of modesty, and that it is something that we all should be striving for. What are you (both men and women) doing to aim at modesty? Do you distinguish between modest and immodest clothing, or do you just wear "what's comfortable" without consideration for how it affects others?
This post is just the beginning of a very important discussion of a subject that I really dislike talking about, but it cannot be ignored. If good people do nothing, then evil will win. As uncomfortable as it may be, can we honestly say that we are happy with how modern society is steadily degenerating into greater and greater immodesty? Let us begin the conversation here, and let us do something about it.
