My Take on the Question of Modesty

So maybe it is the circles I run in, but the whole question of modesty seems to be blowing up all over my social media. For a while, Jessica Rey's presentation about the Evolution of the Swimsuit was impressing some of my friends and more recently I have seen a few other posts, including this one by Rachel Held Evans. And just a few weeks before that, Marc Barnes over at the Bad Catholic Blog let loose a torrent of posts on the issue of modesty. Although I have only read one of them (Modest is Not Hottest) I highly recommend all of them because I hold his blog in the highest esteem.

But I digress. On to my actual post which is, more or less, a response to the post of Ms. Evans for www.qideas.org. I agree with many of the things that Ms. Evans said, in fact, but there are a few points on which we might disagree.

One of the mistakes that we tend to make on the issue of modesty is reducing modesty merely to a style of clothing. Yes, modesty affects the way we dress, but it is so much more! Modesty is a virtue and a Fruit of the Holy Spirit. If we have the virtue of modesty then it will inform the way we dress, but to say that to be modest all we need is to dress differently then we miss the whole point of modesty.

This is where I think the teaching of the Catholic Church on modesty is so incredible. And I think that when we teach on modesty it would be good to actually look at those teachings. The Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes a small section to the "Battle for Purity." It is here that we read some of the most important teachings on modesty. "Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden...Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. There is a modesty of the feelings as well as the body... Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies." And it goes on. All of this can be found from paragraphs 2520- 2527 in the Catechism. It is a very quick read.

My wife made an interesting observation on this issue last night. She said, "There is a difference between a woman who wears a bikini at the beach and spends the day with her family, goes swimming, etc, and a woman who wears a bikini and prowls the beach and flirts with anything that moves." Modesty cannot simply be about the way we dress, it is, more importantly, about our attitude and how we act. You can wear a hajib all you want, but if you then proceed to go out and act overtly sexual, it doesn't matter what you wear. As a high school teacher I see this especially at school dances. Girls (and boys for that matter) get dressed up and look classy, but their manner of speech and dance can be far from modest. This is why the Catechism tells us that, "Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person." Its not just about how we look.

That being said, both Ms. Rey's and Ms. Evans' posts seemed to focus on what we wear. So I want to touch on that a little bit. Ms. Evans speaks about "three extremes those of us who value modesty should take care to avoid" and of those three I would like to comment on two.

"We turn modesty into objectification when we hold women responsible for the thoughts and actions of men." To a certain degree, I agree. We cannot hold women completely responsible for the thoughts and actions of men. That would deny free will on the part of the men. But it seems that Evans wants to absolve women of any responsibility for the thoughts and actions of men. She writes:

Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart, so ladies, be sure to dress more modestly.” Instead he says to the men, “if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away”!

This line of thinking says, "I am not my brother's keeper." This is the very sentiment of Cain. After killing his brother Abel, he says to God, "Am I my brother's keeper" (Genesis 4:9). We do have a responsibility for those around us. No man is an island unto himself. St. Paul writes on several occasions urging us to take care that we do not lead those around us into sin. He writes, "it is good not to drink wine or eat meat or do anything else that causes your brother to stumble" (Romans 14: 13 ff. See also 1 Corinthians 8: 7-13; 1 Timothy 4:12). Even Christ Himself speaks to the issue. Right before he says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away," He says, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea" (Mark 9:42 ff). So there seems to be a dual responsibility, the one who causes another to sin is partially responsible as is the one who actually commits the sin. That being said, protecting men is not the reason women should act modestly, nor vice versa. Rather, we should act modestly to protect ourselves.

Modesty serves two purposes (and this is how I teach modesty in the morality class at my school): First, it protects you from being used.
Second, it protects others from sin.

Notice that the primary purpose of modesty is to protect us, not others. I speak, think, and dress modestly because it is good for me. Remember what the Catechism says, "Modesty protects the intimate center of the person." Modesty is like a gun. Yes you can use it to protect others, but the reason you got it was to protect yourself. If you don't want to be at the center of someone's disturbing fantasy, then be modest.

Evans' second point is that, "We turn modesty into objectification when we assume that there are single standards that apply to all people in all cultures." Ms. Evans I absolutely agree with you on this point. And I agree that "We don't stop lust by covering up the female form; we stop lust by teaching men to treat women as human beings worthy of respect." But I also reject what I understand to be your conclusion. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying, "Different cultures understand modesty different and so we can't make any rules about it." My idea, and that of the Catholic Church, is that yes, while modesty differs from culture to culture, we live in a fairly specific culture. Those cultures in which topless women are the norm seem to be more of the exception rather than the rule.

The Catechism says, "The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an institution of the spiritual dignity proper to man" (CCC 2574). Within the United States, I think it is fair to speak of an "American Culture." And within that culture I think it would be reasonable and responsible to speak about what activities and fashions are modest or immodest on a very objective level, rather than on the subjective. Specifically what "rules" should be followed is another question entirely, but I think that it would be good to start a discussion on that matter.

And so Ms. Evans, while I think your article was very well written (far better than mine), and while I think that you spoke some very important truths into this discussion, it seems to me that you missed one very important aspect of modesty and immodesty. Immodesty does not affect others first, it affects me first. It took me a while to pinpoint my exact disagreement with your point of view, but in the end it is this: You seem to brush off the lust of others as their problem. But if someone were to lust after me (which is far-fetched indeed) it does not just hurt them, it hurts me. I should be outraged if someone were to objectify me, because I am worth so much more than that. This is why I am modest, because it is good for me!

So to summarize, modesty is about who we are, not what we look like. What we look like is only part of who we are. This was one of the things I really liked about Jessica Rey's presentation. Towards the end she says, "Modesty isn't about covering ourselves up...its about revealing our dignity." Modesty reveals to the world that we are Christ's, and perhaps more importantly, it allows Christ to shine forth through us. If this is what we want, then yes, we must dress differently from the culture around us, but we must also speak, think, and act differently. We must get to the point where we can say with St. Paul, "It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me."

God love you!

The Catholic Church and Same-Sex Marriage

The purpose of this post is not to explain the Catholic Church's stance on Same-Sex Marriage or relationships. This point is really more of a reflection for myself and what I think the Supreme Court's decision means for us as Catholics.

This decision will no doubt make our calling as Catholics more difficult. We tend to associate law with morality, and so by overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the Supreme Court has, in effect, stated that same-sex relationships are morally permissible. However, as we well know, morality and law do not always match up because we as human beings are not perfect. So by striking down DOMA, our job to proclaim the truth has become much more difficult.

But at the same time--and this is definitely how I prefer to look at it--our job has become easier. Think about it in terms of light and darkness: the darker the night, the more a single light can make a difference, and as long as a light shines, the darkness is never complete.

So the truth has been hidden. Did this not happen to Christ himself? Earlier today, Mark Hart Tweeted, "In John 18:38 a government official asks God, 'What is truth?' Then Truth got crucified.'" But when the world did its best to destroy Truth Himself, Truth revealed itself even more powerfully: Christ Resurrected and revealed himself to many and His Apostles spread His Gospel message throughout the world! Even His very death revealed the Truth to at least one person (Matthew 27:54).

Although the Truth may be hidden from our minds, we cannot hide the Truth from our hearts. This is why St. Augustine said, "The truth is like a lion. You don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself." We cannot hide the Truth from our hearts because we are made for Truth who is Christ Himself, (John 14:6) and, to quote St. Augustine again, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

And so even in the enveloping darkness I have confidence in Christ and I truly believe that the "Light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it" (John 1:5) or if you prefer the words of the Lord to St. Peter, "the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against [the Church]" (Mark 16:18).

From 1969-1970 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote a book entitled, "Faith and our Future." In this book he wrote, "The Church will become small will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes...she will lose many of her social privileges... It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy.

"It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek... But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

"And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already with Gobel, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death." (Emphasis Added)

I love the very last part of this (long) quote. So often, especially in the United States, we forget that the Church is not a social power but a spiritual one. The early Church was hated with a burning passion. St. Paul, when he was still Saul, killed Christians as a sort of hobby that stemmed from his religious fervor.

During this time period, only Christians who truly loved the Church and their faith were willing to be Christians--it was too dangerous for it to be otherwise. It wasn't until Constantine converted to Christianity that conversions became a "popular" thing rather than an act of faith. Since that time there have been several periods of history during which the Church was, in one sense or another, purified of all those who called themselves Catholics but were only so in name rather than in belief. This is not to say that Catholics are perfect. On the contrary, we know we are all sinners. It is not so much our actions that unite us, but our beliefs that do. However there seems to be an increasing number of people in our society that call themselves Catholics while at the same time believing in things other than those taught by the Catholic Church.

Perhaps this is a time of purification for Holy Mother Church. Perhaps this is a time where we will see those who do not value the Church and Her teachings fleeing from her. But that also means that those who do love the Church, no matter how small in number, will have an even stronger bond. And we must never underestimate what we as a small group of faithful men and women can do to spread the Gospel--just look at the early Church.

This is a time when our faith will be tested. When we as Catholics in the United States will have to stand up for our faith. This is not something that we are so accustomed to. Religious liberty was a founding principle of this country, but now we will be called bigots for what we know to be true. But this, too, can be seen as a good thing.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the things that we suffer for are the things that mean the most to us, but the things that come easy are often taken for granted. This is true for our faith as well. We have become so comfortable in our faith that we have come to take it for granted. We have started to believe that being a Catholic is easy, which is quite contradictory to what Jesus tells us in the Bible. If we truly belong to Christ, then the world will hate us because it hated him first (John 15:18). Perhaps we will even be found worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ (Acts 5:41).

And so the decision of the Supreme Court today gives us a wonderful opportunity: the opportunity to preach the Gospel to a society sorely in need; the opportunity to truly be a city on a hill, a lamp in the darkness, to truly be a witness for the Gospel even as the early martyrs were. This is an opportunity to cling more closely to Christ, to put our hope in Him, and to proclaim our beliefs more passionately. This is a time when our faith will be purified, as gold is refined by fire, and when we must rely on those who we hold dearest to us. So let us leap into this new challenge, confident in our Lord and ready to proclaim Christ to the yearning human heart!

God Love You!