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LittleSoldier
Guest
It does remind me of the Bible where I’m told I should accept someone else’s private interpretation as Truth because that person is being guided by the Holy Spirit and even though I might think I am guided by the Holy Spirit too, it’s obvious that I’m just delusional.
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DoulaMama
Guest
You are absolutely right that a woman that wants to set an example and become Christ-like needs to wear modest clothing.That’s great. Women striving for holiness should indeed try to emulate other holy women, especially our Blessed Mother which is why I mentioned her. Living in a different era has nothing to do with it. Should a woman who really wants to set an example and become Christ-like wear **anything **that is immodest? Thank you for your post.
I see now that you were asking more of “would Mary wear this (a bikini)”?, not a “what do we always see images of Mary wearing?”
Sometimes it takes me a little while
There are so many opinions of what is modest that I thought the easiest way to address it would be to give an example of a canonized saint that lived in modern times and that we have access to actual pictures of.
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BobObob
Guest
First, when papal infallibility was defined at Vatican I, it gave very specific criteria as to what fall under papal infallibility. There have only been a handful of incidences in which these criteria have been met in a teaching. A teaching may be authoritative without being infallible (or at least falling under papal infallibility), but that’s for another thread, like forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=458259It does remind me of the Bible where I’m told I should accept someone else’s private interpretation as Truth because that person is being guided by the Holy Spirit and even though I might think I am guided by the Holy Spirit too, it’s obvious that I’m just delusional.
One should believe in the teaching authority of the magisterium because that’s the conclusion they have come to after research. The Bible does mention Jesus giving power to Peter.
It is interesting to note that the criteria for papal infallibility has never been met for a teaching regarding dress.
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Advocatus_Fidei
Guest
The dogma of papal infallibility does not mean you are free to totally ignore the things the Pope says which you don’t like if he’s not speaking infallibly and it would be very stupid and arrogant to do so not to mention that it is a sign of a schismatic mentality.
The Bikini is not compatible with Christianity as shown by 2000 years of Christian traditions in dress and teaching on the need for modesty, furthermore you would not be granted entry into any Catholic church building dressed so utterly revolting as proof I invite you to try and visit the Vatican in one or any church in one of the few remaining truly catholic countries, Malta.
Furthermore those who say otherwise as well as been utterly wrong are guilty of the sin of encouraging others to dress in a sinful way and will have to answer to God for their support of this evil way of dressing, or rather not dressing and their consent to all the sins that go with it.
The Bikini is not compatible with Christianity as shown by 2000 years of Christian traditions in dress and teaching on the need for modesty, furthermore you would not be granted entry into any Catholic church building dressed so utterly revolting as proof I invite you to try and visit the Vatican in one or any church in one of the few remaining truly catholic countries, Malta.
Furthermore those who say otherwise as well as been utterly wrong are guilty of the sin of encouraging others to dress in a sinful way and will have to answer to God for their support of this evil way of dressing, or rather not dressing and their consent to all the sins that go with it.
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CWBetts
Guest
You at leas have to admit you have no teaching authority, and you have yet to come up wit a single shred of evidence that immodesty is not a problemIt does remind me of the Bible where I’m told I should accept someone else’s private interpretation as Truth because that person is being guided by the Holy Spirit and even though I might think I am guided by the Holy Spirit too, it’s obvious that I’m just delusional.
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PatriceA
Guest
Wow, what a stretch to automatically assume that someone that wears a bikini in their backyard or at a place where other people are dressed accordingly would not have the intelligence to know that dressing for the Vatican or the supermarket, or mass, or going out to eat would mean choosing more modest clothing.
I should thank all of you that are chastising those of us that would choose to wear a bikini at the pool or a beach. It has certainly opened my eyes to how I myself may be judging people on their choice of clothing. And I will certainly think twice about doing so in the future and judge those people by their actions and not that they may not be meeting a strict standard of clothing. I’m sure that wasn’t your intention, but I certainly do not feel I am being Christian when I see only what someone is wearing or not wearing and deem them less of a Catholic or Christian than I am. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
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Advocatus_Fidei
Guest
Modesty is not relative Patrice it is universal. By your reasoning it is perfectly ok to walk around completely naked as long as everyone else is doing, it is not and is always wrong regardless of whatever everyone else is doing, same with the bikini and with any other form of immodest dress, they are always immoral and sinful, sins do not stop been sins just because everyone sins.
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PatriceA
Guest
If you get invited to a wedding and it says “black tie” do you not dress accordingly? If you get invited to a party and it says “business casual”, do you not dress accordingly? I get an invitation from a girlfriend to a backyard pool party, I would dress accordingly and that may very well be a conservative bikini or tankini, because that would be the appropriate mode of dress. If I got an inviation where its “come naked”, I might be reconsidering my choice of friends.
So to me it is relative, its not as black and white as you make it. And the two sides of this arguement are just never going to agree.
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CWBetts
Guest
Morality is not relative. To claim otherwise is to buy into the misbegotten philosophy of Kant.
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BobObob
Guest
Just to give you some background information on myself, I’m a theology major at a Catholic college that prides itself in orthodoxy. I’m studied the Catholic Church a bit.
I don’t want to get too off topic, but a non-infallible teaching of the CC may have varying degrees of authoritativeness. We must “a religious docility of the will and intellect” to any CC teaching that is authoritative, yet non-infallible, meaning one must make a genuine effort to incorporate the given teaching into one’s personal religious convictions.” This goes well beyond this thread, but its theoretically possible for one to disagree with an authoritative, non-infallible, CC teaching and still be Catholic, as the professor of Catholic studies lists criteria for doing so in the following article:
lists.oakland.edu/pipermail/stjohnfisher/2007-January/000038.html
Also, no teaching regarding particulars of required dress have really been taught universally and authoritatively.
What about poorer Christian cultures where nudity is more common and women walk around topless? What about Peter, the first pope, being naked in public in front of Christ, who didn’t rebuke him for nudity (John 21:7 blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=21&v=1&t=KJV#top )? What about the practice (which later ceased for the most part) of Christians being baptized naked? Surely if full nudity was sometimes OK, wearing bikinis would have been as well.
Modesty isn’t about any universal particulars saying “‘x’ amount of skin must be covered” or “‘x’ is never OK to wear in public,” it is rather about universal principles.
Also, I don’t appreciate you falsely accusing me of making up the quote, “Immodesty is only present when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person,” and falsely attributed it the JPII (post 167). I’ve proven that JPII did right that. That is the general principle that IMHO is behind the virtue of modesty.
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Advocatus_Fidei
Guest
There is a huge difference between a dress code set by men and clothing which is in line with the virtue of modesty which is part of the Divine law set by God. If one is not compatible with the other you as a Christian are supposed to obey Christ rather than men.
If you wear immodest clothing which displeases God to please and fit in with your immodest friends you are putting your friends above God which is a sin against the very first and most important commandment.
I say again modesty is not relative even you admit that dressing naked is not appropriate even if everyone else is naked which shows you yourself do not even really believe the argument you are making you just have personal standards which are far to low but you so stil have standards which are not entirely governed by what the artificial dress code set by another human being is.
Bikini’s are immoral and morality is not relative, moral relativism heresy and has been condemned by the Church time and time again.
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lil_flower_luv
Guest
That’s right. Thank youYou are absolutely right that a woman that wants to set an example and become Christ-like needs to wear modest clothing.
I see now that you were asking more of “would Mary wear this (a bikini)”?, not a “what do we always see images of Mary wearing?”
Sometimes it takes me a little while
There are so many opinions of what is modest that I thought the easiest way to address it would be to give an example of a canonized saint that lived in modern times and that we have access to actual pictures of.
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estesbob
Guest
I am wondering-is it a sin for women to wear black patent leather shoes?
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Advocatus_Fidei
Guest
Bob just to clarify something, it was your false interpretation of the quote by Pope Benedict XV that I was accusing you of making up as what you said the Pope was saying had no resemblance to what the Pope said in the quote but was rather just what you thought based on some other quote which may or may not be genuine but regardless does nothing to counter the Church’s 2000 year old traditions and teachings not to mention the example of how people dressed in any truly Christian culture as recorded throughout history.
The bikini is a pagan form of clothing and is immodest, immoral and sinful.
As to your formal learning well there are plenty of masters of theology who are also heretics and hold all kinds of errors, in fact it is theologians who in the past century who have done the most damage to the Faith. So it does not surprise me to find a theology major promoting relativism when it comes to modest dress.
I know what my ancestors believed, I know how Christians lived before the culture turned its back on God and I tell you a Christian society would never permit the abomination that is the bikini.
The bikini is a pagan form of clothing and is immodest, immoral and sinful.
As to your formal learning well there are plenty of masters of theology who are also heretics and hold all kinds of errors, in fact it is theologians who in the past century who have done the most damage to the Faith. So it does not surprise me to find a theology major promoting relativism when it comes to modest dress.
I know what my ancestors believed, I know how Christians lived before the culture turned its back on God and I tell you a Christian society would never permit the abomination that is the bikini.
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BobObob
Guest
Do you even know what the heresy of moral relativism is? If you did you wouldn’t have suggested that I’m falling to the heresy of moral relativism. The heresy of moral relativism isn’t that the morality of something may depend on the situation, it rather means that there are no moral absolutes. Newadvent, a Catholic encyclopedia, says regarding relativism:
“Any doctrine which denies, universally or in regard to some restricted sphere of being, the existence of absolute values, may be termed Relativism” newadvent.org/cathen/12731d.htm
To say that the morality of something is relative to a situation is NOT moral relativism.
CCC 2524 says “The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another…” The Catechism of the Catholic Church isn’t buying into moral relativism when it says that.
The quote by JPII that I mentioned was compatible with the the quote by Pope Benedict XV that you mentioned. I read the entire encyclical for context and verified this.
Also, you write confidently that the Catholic Church has “2000 year old traditions and teachings” that amount to doctrine that say that certain clothing (or lack thereof) is always and everywhere sinful. Do you have any evidence of this? I’ve read much about what the CC has said in official documents on modesty and haven’t seen any doctrine about certain clothing (or lack thereof) that is always and everywhere sinful to wear.
I have seen non-authoritative recommendations and statements regarding Church disciple by Church leaders, such as Marylike modesty, but these are much different from CC doctrine or tradition.
Christians, such as Peter and early Christians who were persecuted, were NOT turning their back on God by occasional nudity. Will you admit this as well as the fact that if being nude in public is sometimes moral, than wearing a bikini in public (such as at a beach) is sometimes moral?
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The_Bucket
Guest
Really? I’m pretty sure the material and manufacturing processes used to create bikinis did not exist in ancient Rome. If by “pagan” you mean it’s anti-Christian, what is your reply to poorer cultures or African Christian cultures where females being barechested is considered completely normal? What about the changes in today’s culture where it’s immodest for boys to run around naked after age two or three, but that was totally normal here in the US for boys up to puberty just a half-century ago?
Ah, but you have no problems avoiding error in an area where the Church itself has acknowledged that definitions of modesty change based on culture and time.
Christian societies in the past tacitly condoned the ghettoing and murdering of Jews when plagues or other disasters occurred. Christian societies in the past gave us multiple popes and anti-popes. Christian societies in the past had fornicating bishops, cardinals and popes.
The past, in many ways, was worse than the present. Yes, today’s culture is oversexed and selfish but previous cultures marginalized minorities and looked the other way at their oppression and murder. Even Christian societies! Alleged Christian leaders used the faith as a way to drive warfare that was really all about land. Popes sanctioned sectarian warfare and got heavily involved in politics and corruption. So don’t tell me that your and my ancestors from Europe were model Christians and perfectly saintly and modest people. That’s a total joke.
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The_Bucket
Guest
My wife, the mother of my two kids, looks ridiculously hot in a bikini.
Surely we both are going to hell.
Mary_Gail_36
New member
I think only after Labor Day…
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The_Bucket
Guest
Oh yeah, and yet again I ask, why is this concern with modesty only with women? In the past it was considered pretty immodest for a man to be barechested and speak with a woman. Sure, it was OK for a shirtless man to be hard at work, but he was expected to put on a shirt before speaking with a woman. That was fairly easy since women tended not to be around men when they were doing this hard manual labor in the workplace. And in the case of a Biblical story, Peter stripped down to dive into the water to meet Christ; he could do so because no women were around but men were not allowed to be barechested in public
And it was considered vulgar for a man to be barechested at any time in the 19th and very early 20th century America. Not immodest, but vulgar in the sense that being barechested was a sign of being poor. When male laborers returned from the fields or the factory or wherever, they put on full body type swimming outfits if they ever got the chance to hit the beach because it was immodest to be barechested in front of the general public. Would you argue that a man can’t be shirtless without being immodest? Not out of place, but immodest.
And it was considered vulgar for a man to be barechested at any time in the 19th and very early 20th century America. Not immodest, but vulgar in the sense that being barechested was a sign of being poor. When male laborers returned from the fields or the factory or wherever, they put on full body type swimming outfits if they ever got the chance to hit the beach because it was immodest to be barechested in front of the general public. Would you argue that a man can’t be shirtless without being immodest? Not out of place, but immodest.
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