Proper Dress and Behavior for Catholic Women

[kaguilar]

Dear members,
I know that this subject has aparently had a lot of debate and i would just like to say that each person is at their own level of faith and devotion, this being said their is not one person better than the other. But, a persons modesty level has to be a personal choice and there has to be a lot of prayer and thought put into it. As for me i do dress modestlt and wear a headcovering all the time but this is how I choose to glorify God. If a person covers all the time and dresses modeatly as I do wonderful and God bless them but if someone chooses not to then a better way to deal with it is to pray about it and ask God what he wants you to do. It has to be that way. I follow the Pope like anyone else and try to do my best to be faithful to the church and its teachings. But no one is perfect and never will be. There is only one God. But instead of pointing fingers an and throwing acuzations around and telling a person they are wrong for wanting to dress modestly and cover all the time is down right mean and not very Christian like if, and my impression was that we were all Christians as well as catholics. If you women want to wear pants go ahead and do so but I will continue to wear my head covering and dresses. One day we will all be judged and it wont be by one another. And to be petty and argue about what we have on our backs is probably part of that but not all of it. Be kind to one another!!

God Bless

 

[BlyssfulDreamer]

Dear members,
I know that this subject has aparently had a lot of debate and i would just like to say that each person is at their own level of faith and devotion, this being said their is not one person better than the other. But, a persons modesty level has to be a personal choice and there has to be a lot of prayer and thought put into it. As for me i do dress modestlt and wear a headcovering all the time but this is how I choose to glorify God. If a person covers all the time and dresses modeatly as I do wonderful and God bless them but if someone chooses not to then a better way to deal with it is to pray about it and ask God what he wants you to do. It has to be that way. I follow the Pope like anyone else and try to do my best to be faithful to the church and its teachings. But no one is perfect and never will be. There is only one God. But instead of pointing fingers an and throwing acuzations around and telling a person they are wrong for wanting to dress modestly and cover all the time is down right mean and not very Christian like if, and my impression was that we were all Christians as well as catholics. If you women want to wear pants go ahead and do so but I will continue to wear my head covering and dresses. One day we will all be judged and it wont be by one another. And to be petty and argue about what we have on our backs is probably part of that but not all of it. Be kind to one another!!
God Bless

Very well said…

 

[ac_claire]

Agreed, however it is not love for your neighbor to make it harder than normal for men to achieve custody of their eyes.

Yes, well said.

I am not defending women who dress provocatively. I am addressing the attitude that women bear all the responsibility for a man’s reaction even if they dress & behave modestly.

No, of course they don’t bear all of the responsibility. But if they are aware that their dress and/or behavior is in any way immodest, then they are culpable for their own lack of charity by willfully contributing to a possible occasion of moral struggle or sin by their very presence in public.

Nobody ever said that striving for perfect charity in our lives was easy or even fair. But we’re bound to try anyhow, aren’t we?

Personally, I will dress as often as I can in skirts and dresses because of modesty and because I feel better wearing them. They’re more feminine. Also my finace likes it and I believe a wife (or future wife) should dress to please her husband.

I’m a relative beginner to this, so right now I only have a few skirts. Just for necessity and practicality I do end up wearing nice pants to work some of the time. But it’s not ideal and it’s only a temporary situation until I can get more skirts.

 

[adelore]

Ok, my two cent’s worth. I find what Kaguliar said to very trueful and she did in fact hit the nail on the head. Each person is at a different level or walk with our Lord. We each Dress according to how we either listen to the Spirit, or how we don’t…(of course depending on how we view modest dressing.)

Now to be honest, I’ll tell something about myself from years ago, ok well maybe not that many years ago…but a few anyway. And let’s just see if anyone else out there did the same as I did or if they still do now. You only have to be honest with yourself, you don’t have to explain it to me one way or the other…but just see if you don’t see a little of yourself in what I’m about to say.

I use to wear tight jeans, low cut tight fitting shirts. (the knit kind, tank tops, you get the idea. Look at any T.V. add, Magz. Adds and you’ll see that is just how I was dressing.)

Why? Because it made me “feel” Sexy and to be honest I enjoyed it when the “men” looked at me. And believe me they looked. It made me feel great, young, atractive, and to be bluntly honest, even though I was (still am) married, it made me feel like I hadn’t “lost it yet.” And if they flirted with me just a tad, woooo what a way to set the ego, for a mother of 4 with Grandchildren.

Any women who says, otherwise, who dresses like this is lieing to themselves or to others. Of course it felt Great to have men look at me and admire me…hello I was human and didn’t understand that I was causing another person to fall into a lustful sin in their mind. (not that all men did, but I’ll lay odds a few of them did.) After all hasn’t society taught us this is how we should dress…to attract the men?

Does this mean that how I was dressing would have been my fault if I would have been rapped. Of course not. Yet truely we as women, have let ourselves become “Victems” of the “Clothing Industry.” Hello, it’s to attract the men! Plain and Simple.

Do I dress this way now? Not a chance! What have I learned? Well the way I dress now, men show me Respect and tons of it. They treat me like a lady…(no not like a weak women) but with respect I had never experienced before. They aren’t drewling, and undressing me with their eyes and minds…and who knows what else we were doing in their minds.

Then we as Catholics…have become the Victumes of our own undoing even when it comes to the Worship and House of the Lord.

For example: How many Parents send their daughter to their Senior Prom in a pair of Blue Jeans? Of course you don’t, after all it’s their Senior Prom, a once in a life time experience.

Yet, many Catholics today think** Less **of how they dress for Mass and yet we are then worshiping our Lord.

We will dress up to go to a Truely Fancy Restraunt, yet we will dress in bluejeans and T-shirts, or low cut tight shirts, (if we are women or young girls) for our Lord?

What a Shame our Lord who has done so much for us…rates so low.

There are second hand stores all over the country, they have some very nice clothes, so expensive clothes for church is not an issue.

Now to be fair I must admit that I don’t really care how anyone else dresses for Mass, after all you aren’t there to Impress me. You are there to worship the Lord. If you feel your jeans are ok, then that’s up to you.

If someone wants to dress like I use to, I wont stand in judgement, (but I will pray for you) because just maybe you are at the cross roads in your life that your not seeing the Big Picture, like I was and where I was, that I too caused others to sin in their hearts and minds. Sad isn’t it if just maybe we are causing others to sin in our Lords Presence, in His House.

Believe me, I’ve asked for forgiveness tons of times over…I know once is enough to ask for forgiveness…but geeze how many times I must have caused others to sin…thinking I was doing nothing wrong…because I wasn’t seeing the Big Picture.

 

[kaguilar]

This is all true also, when i poster that i dressed modestly and wear a head covering it has not always been that way. God knows as of two months ago I was much like the rest of the women in the world. But there comes a point in everyones life when you have to set back and really ask yourself am i doing everything i can to glorify God and not cause others to sin as well. With that being said each person really needs to stop and take a good look at themselves and pray about it and and then pray some more and weather it is a cape dress and covering like myself or just minor changes to the wardrobe you already have do not become a slave to fashion and trends, but let God guide you in what he thinks your style should be. Prayer is the key, talk to God and then when you think you have prayed enough pray some more and then listen. Listen with your heart God will let you know what is the right thing to do.

Blessings

If any of you are interested plain catholics do exist and have a rather large following although some may not agree I will post it anyways, and hopefully no one is offended.

plaincatholic.blogspot.com/2007/08/plain-catholic-spirituality.html

 

[Vico]

I don’t like the fact that in some Religious circles women are blamed for the sins of men. …
Another thing that really bothers me, is that you are blaming women for the lust in men’s heart.

It saddens me to learn that you were raped as a child. I would not blame a women for the sins of men.

(There is a subtle assumption in the idea of ‘blaming women for men’s lust’, that men are nothing more than animals without free will, which is actually untrue.)

As to modesty, it applies to all, and there are a few causes of immodesty.

Immodesty may be practiced to get the attention of the opposite sex and any ego gratification or excitement that may result from that attention. (In the case of performers, it may be for money, or by some to demonstrate defiance or disrespect for God or an authority.) Immodesty is vanity because it values the material over the spiritual and demonstrates that orientation to others, providing a bad example for them. Dignity and respect both in and out of church is an elevating behavior and shows humility.

 

[ac_claire]

Another thing that really bothers me, is that you are blaming women for the lust in men’s heart. As someone who was sexually raped as a little girl I find your statement offensive and is an example of what I went through as a child being blamed for the acts of a grown man who lusted after a little girl.

Hey Christy, I just wanted to respond real quick to this. I’m very sorry that you went through what you describe as a child. I don’t think that anyone is taking the position that it’s the victim’s fault for being raped. Of course it’s not, especially in your case being that you were just a child.

Here’s the truth though: while we can’t control the behavior of others, we can only control our own behavior and actions. My grandma used to tell me that if I went outside dressed like a streetwalker I was more likely to get raped. This is just a fact…doesn’t mean that dressing provocatively will ensure being attacked and doesn’t mean that modestly dressed women never get attacked themselves. It just means that an immodestly-dressed woman is more likely to receive any and all kinds of unpleasant attention from men.

Leaving the issue of rape and violence aside, we have to acknowledge that we are responsible for how we dress and behave. If I deliberately try and make a man lust after me through the way I dress and carry myself then I have already sinned. If I’m attacked by a degernate, lust-crazed criminal, it’s his fault for attacking me but at the same time it’s likely that had I not put myself in that particular situation, the attack may not have happened. I may have been irresponsible, but he is still guilty of the crime.

 

[Auntie_M]

Can someone tell me what the proper dress and behavior is for Catholic Men?

This sounds soooo like a Pentecostal service/idea. Which I grew up with with my Grandmother. The whole church would snub their noses at those women wearing pants. But there were an awful lot of them running off with their pastors.

God is not in the fashion business. He is in the soul business.
If your soul is right with God, I don’t think he much cares about your outside appearance. It is only package covering anyway.

It wasn’t God that gave Adam and Eve their “clothes”.

Think about this. A poor woman has no money, (her husband left her for another woman). All her dresses have holes in them. She has no “decent” "church going"clothes. She is given clothes to wear by a thrift store. (But they are all pants) What does she do?
Stay Home??? Stay away from partaking of the Eucharist?

People are like houses. It’s what’s inside that counts.

 

[Auntie_M]

I’m sorry, but just one more thought to think about.

Women in olden times (before pants and tight jeans and shirts) were also raped and killed. But they wore their dresses down to their ankles and buttoned up to their chins. Who was responsible for them getting raped?

Hummmm? can someone tell me…

 

[ac_claire]

I’m sorry, but just one more thought to think about.

Women in olden times (before pants and tight jeans and shirts) were also raped and killed. But they wore their dresses down to their ankles and buttoned up to their chins. Who was responsible for them getting raped?

Hummmm? can someone tell me…

Yes I can tell you lol. The rapist would be responsible.

The fault is with the rapist. For women who go out dressing and behaving in a way designed soley to insight lust in other men…? The fault would still be with the rapist, but a certain amount of responsibility would lie on the woman’s shoulders as well. To what measure, only God knows. But this is simply common sense.

 

[Lainey63]

Can someone tell me what the proper dress and behavior is for Catholic Men?

This sounds soooo like a Pentecostal service/idea. Which I grew up with with my Grandmother. The whole church would snub their noses at those women wearing pants. But there were an awful lot of them running off with their pastors.

God is not in the fashion business. He is in the soul business.
If your soul is right with God, I don’t think he much cares about your outside appearance. It is only package covering anyway.

It wasn’t God that gave Adam and Eve their “clothes”.

Think about this. A poor woman has no money, (her husband left her for another woman). All her dresses have holes in them. She has no “decent” "church going"clothes. She is given clothes to wear by a thrift store. (But they are all pants) What does she do?
Stay Home??? Stay away from partaking of the Eucharist?

People are like houses. It’s what’s inside that counts.

I agree totally with you! What we are all going through is an inside job! If it was an outside job we’d all dress like royalty. Many saints have been judged negatively by their attire in the past. We all going to start seeing more poverty in the US and we will all be affected-what we are going through economically now is just the tip of the iceburg, it’s going to get a lot worse.
But I noticed that this thread has taken all sorts of twists & turns…what is ironic is that the women who wear dresses & head coverings to church think that those of us who prefer not to wear dresses feel like they have to defend themselves & vice-versa. I prefer casual and comfortable…that doesn’t mean shorts, half naked, frumpy & sloppy. One never knows-you may have to have a physical confrontation during mass if someone tries to steal the Holy Eucharist-I know that I had too and I’m glad I was not wearing a dress.

 

[Julianna]

Threads like this are hysterical. Somebody catch needle on the record, I think it’s stuck in 1950.

I’m glad I’m not.

 

[rachah]

Can someone tell me what the proper dress and behavior is for Catholic Men?

This sounds soooo like a Pentecostal service/idea. Which I grew up with with my Grandmother. The whole church would snub their noses at those women wearing pants. But there were an awful lot of them running off with their pastors.

God is not in the fashion business. He is in the soul business.
If your soul is right with God, I don’t think he much cares about your outside appearance. It is only package covering anyway.

It wasn’t God that gave Adam and Eve their “clothes”.

Think about this. A poor woman has no money, (her husband left her for another woman). All her dresses have holes in them. She has no “decent” "church going"clothes. She is given clothes to wear by a thrift store. (But they are all pants) What does she do?
Stay Home??? Stay away from partaking of the Eucharist?

People are like houses. It’s what’s inside that counts.

I agree with you from top to bottom!

 

[adelore]

Truth be told anyone who gets Raped it’s not an act of lust. Although to the victume it must seem so. No indeed Rape is an act of control and to be little the victume. It is a Mentally sick desease.

I do agree that each person man or women must dress for Mass how they feel moved to. I don’t think people have to defend how they dress for Mass. We each have to do what we think Honors our Heavenly Father.

Some on here think it makes no difference what we wear, as it’s what in our hearts they say.

Ok now I know this is going to sound silly, but what if someone wanted to show up to Mass in a bikini? After all they are covered, and surely if their heart is in the right place, it really shouldn’t make a difference right? After all God knows their heart.

So what it all boils down to is this… Each person has in his/her mind what is ok or allowable, or modest to them. After all the person in the Bikini, may think nothing of it, to them this shouldn’t cause a problem…maybe they feel they can worship God because their heart is in the right place…

I have seen over the years people come in tank tops and shorts… mid-drift belly shirts, ect. won’t be long…and the Bikini (or less) could be showing up to Mass.

but then of course we couldn’t really say they were in-modest could we? After all seems each person has their own view of what is acceptable to wear at Mass.

 

[centurionguard]

Yes I can tell you lol. The rapist would be responsible.

The fault is with the rapist. For women who go out dressing and behaving in a way designed soley to insight lust in other men…? The fault would still be with the rapist, but a certain amount of responsibility would lie on the woman’s shoulders as well. To what measure, only God knows. But this is simply common sense.

Not to be insensitive or disrespectful in any way, shape, or form
But after having read the realization of seductive dress code and
how it could very well play a real factor in the unjustifiable rape of some women. I am forced to look at circumstances within myself being a heterosexual male rape victim tortured, beaten, and gang-raped at gunpoint. Sigh ! Dress code was not the reason why I became vulnerable to the horrid circumstances I was forced to endure. But if I must bear any guilt that is painful to admit.
I do remember drinking at a dance club bar that night I want to forget. Gosh ! I feel terribly awful. In hindsight I just never thought about this realization. Yeah there is much more to this story but it was not my fault other than the fact that yes I had been drinking. It hurts…but the cold reality of life goes on.
Thanks anyways for making this post.

 

[adelore]

Not to be insensitive or disrespectful in any way, shape, or form
But after having read the realization of seductive dress code and
how it could very well play a real factor in the unjustifiable rape of some women. I am forced to look at circumstances within myself being a heterosexual male rape victim tortured, beaten, and gang-raped at gunpoint. Sigh ! Dress code was not the reason why I became vulnerable to the horrid circumstances I was forced to endure. But if I must bear any guilt that is painful to admit.
I do remember drinking at a dance club bar that night I want to forget. Gosh ! I feel terribly awful. In hindsight I just never thought about this realization. Yeah there is much more to this story but it was not my fault other than the fact that yes I had been drinking. It hurts…but the cold reality of life goes on.
Thanks anyways for making this post.

You are 100% Correct. You are not responsible at all for what happened to you. I am very sorry this happened to you!

Even though you were at the dance club and dancing and drinking…this does Not give anyone permission to abuse you the way they did. You were attacked!

It could of happened if you would have been drinking diet coke and dancing and having a good time. Although I grant you that being a little under the weather with drinking does take away our views of things going on around us, out of sorts. (I’ve been tipsy a time or two myself in the past). This does not give anyone permission to abuse anyone.

May God Bless you as you heal from this.

 

[Shin]

I suppose we need to inject common sense here.

Wave a banana in front of a monkey, the monkey grabs it before you can yank it away. Is it your fault the monkey grabbed the banana?

No sin for monkey to grab a banana, in this example. But the example serves as a model of basic logic of responsibility and cause and effect.

Jenna, the stripper from the Starlight Bar reads in the newspaper about Jack the serial rapist, and gets permission to go visit him alone in his cell, where she does a strip tease in front of him. Jack promptly rapes her.

Is it the judgment of some people here that Jenna bears no responsibility for what happened?

John goes out driving while drunk. He doesn’t want to hit any children, but somehow he runs over one. Does John bear any responsibility for running over the child, who jaywalked btw?

These are simple matters. It is easy to determine there is a shared responsibility. In some cases, one person sins, in some cases, no one sins, and simply people are making mistakes, in other cases both people sin.

Sins can be contributing factors to the likelihood of us being hurt by other people’s sins. That how it works. The farther we are from God the farther we are from His protection, and sometimes certain sins directly increase the likelihood of certain other sins.

**It is basic Catholic doctrine that it is a sin to dress in such a way as to provoke lust. **When one has -no choice- but to dress that way because there are no other clothes available that is a situation of course, where there is no sin though there could be sins that lead to that inability in the first place or not.

Why is it basic and fundamental that it is a sin? Because Catholic doctrine REQUIRES people be responsible to each other in their behavior. We are REQUIRED not to behave in ways encourage sins. It is a SIN to encourage another to sin, by both our actions and inactions.

It is a sin to tell someone who is suicidal to ‘Go jump off a cliff.’ It is a sin to tell someone who is lusting, ‘Go enjoy looking at my body.’ Both people are sinning here, the one in the sin, and the one encouraging it.

These are just examples that have foundational ways of thinking behind them – stop looking for loopholes and look at the foundation and spirit of it, the Catholic teaching. Looking for loopholes is not modesty.

I don’t think many of the women here have considered this matter in a Catholic way, I have heard a lot of emotional and illogical statements, a sort of ‘I have no responsibility’ claim, ‘It’s all the man’s fault’. I have heard no one here say ‘It’s all the woman’s fault’ – why are there people complaining as if it has been said? far from it, instead what I constantly hear is, in spirit is ‘It’s all the man’s fault.’

Such selfishness, such lack of humility and modesty and charity, is not of the kingdom of God. You should be in the Confessional. I am saying it straight and saying it hard, because it is necessary, and I hope that those who emotionally can’t handle such statements will sit back and get themselves out of the equation and think about God instead.

That is what He calls us to do.

If my delivery of these truths is troubling to you, I am sorry that is the case – but the truths themselves, are true regardless of the delivery.

 

[Shin]

I must also add that the constant statement I hear about rape not being about lust, is patently false. People do not get aroused without lust, and do not want to have sex or rape anyone without lust. It is patently about lust. Other factors such as control, anger, etc. can be involved, but lust is patently and clearly a factor. The myth that it is not I find spread simply by people who do not want to admit that lust is a problem in society and that something has to be done about it to put a stop to rapes.

Don’t buy the myth. Don’t be fooled.

It is a fact that with the decrease in sexual morality in society and the change of fashions to provoke lust, rapes have exponentially increased. It is a fact that rapists are normally involved with pornography.

 

[centurionguard]

I must also add that the constant statement I hear about rape not being about lust, is patently false. People do not get aroused without lust, and do not want to have sex or rape anyone without lust. It is patently about lust. Other factors such as control, anger, etc. can be involved, but lust is patently and clearly a factor. The myth that it is not I find spread simply by people who do not want to admit that lust is a problem in society and that something has to be done about it to put a stop to rapes.

Don’t buy the myth. Don’t be fooled.

It is a fact that with the decrease in sexual morality in society and the change of fashions to provoke lust, rapes have exponentially increased. It is a fact that rapists are normally involved with pornography.

As for Rape being caused predominantly by Lust is not entirely fact. For the most part Rape Is About Power

Accounts from both offenders and victims of what occurs during a rape suggest that issues of power, anger, and sexuality are important in understanding the rapist’s behavior. All three issues seem to operate in every rape, but the proportion varies and one issue seems to dominate in each instance. In a psycho- analytical study accounts from 133 offenders and 92 victims for the dominant issue and found that the offenses could be categorized as power rape (sexuality used primarily to express power) or anger rape (use of sexuality to express anger). There were no rapes in which sex was the dominant issue; sexuality was always in the service of other, nonsexual needs.

No Woman, Man, or Child deserves Rape
Never ! They carry it the rest of their lives.
And only God can heal the unspeakable pain and stigma
that all Rape Victims carry in their heart.

It’s important we all remember to pray for all Rape Victims
The details of how such happens is not as important as the healing.

Let us never forget.
God Bless Us All

 

[Ottaviani]

As for Rape being caused predominantly by Lust is not entirely fact. For the most part Rape Is About Power

Accounts from both offenders and victims of what occurs during a rape suggest that issues of power, anger, and sexuality are important in understanding the rapist’s behavior. All three issues seem to operate in every rape, but the proportion varies and one issue seems to dominate in each instance. In a psycho- analytical study accounts from 133 offenders and 92 victims for the dominant issue and found that the offenses could be categorized as power rape (sexuality used primarily to express power) or anger rape (use of sexuality to express anger). There were no rapes in which sex was the dominant issue; sexuality was always in the service of other, nonsexual needs.

No Woman, Man, or Child deserves Rape
Never ! They carry it the rest of their lives.
And only God can heal the unspeakable pain and stigma
that all Rape Victims carry in their heart.

It’s important we all remember to pray for all Rape Victims
The details of how such happens is not as important as the healing.

Let us never forget.
God Bless Us All

rape is rape.