Modesty

What am I supposed to wear?

The Church sets no universal dress code. The Catechism’s rule is modesty, and it says outright that “the forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another”; what is everywhere the same is “an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man”. CCC 2524 Clothing comes in once: “Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.” CCC 2522

What modesty guards is the person, not a hemline. It “protects the intimate center of the person”, means “refusing to unveil what should remain hidden”, and “guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons”. CCC 2521 So it binds the one looking as much as the one looked at. It reaches past the body too: “There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body”, which resists voyeuristic advertising and “the allurements of fashion”, CCC 2523 and Christian purity asks of the media “respect and restraint”. CCC 2525

Earlier law and teaching were more specific. The 1917 Code of Canon Law asked women to be at Mass with their heads covered and modestly dressed, 1917 Code of Canon Law, can. 1262 §2 and in 1921 Benedict XV deplored women’s clothing that “shocks every honest man, and offends God”, worn even to Mass and Communion. Sacra Propediem 19 The 1983 Code abrogated the 1917 Code, Can. 6 and it repeats neither the head covering nor any rule of dress for lay people.

What is asked, then, is a judgment made in one’s own culture, with the dignity of persons as its measure. CCC 2521; CCC 2524

Domenichino, The Rebuke of Adam and Eve, 1626. National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Gn 3:11

2521

Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity.

2522

Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.

2523

There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.

2524

The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person.

2525

Christian purity requires a purification of the social climate. It requires of the communications media that their presentations show concern for respect and restraint. Purity of heart brings freedom from widespread eroticism and avoids entertainment inclined to voyeurism and illusion.

§1. When this Code takes force, the following are abrogated:

1/ the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1917;

2/ other universal or particular laws contrary to the prescripts of this Code unless other provision is expressly made for particular laws;

3/ any universal or particular penal laws whatsoever issued by the Apostolic See unless they are contained in this Code;

4/ other universal disciplinary laws regarding matter which this Code completely reorders.

§2. Insofar as they repeat former law, the canons of this Code must be assessed also in accord with canonical tradition.

Sacra Propediem Jan 6, 1921

From the Catechism

In the Code

From the Magisterium