Church/saint Teaching And Modesty

[the171]

Modesty is so much more than "is my skirt below my knees?"

[Papist]

Do you? Are you suuuure? :P

 

Not until my CO* tells me.

 

*  CO = Wife

[Lil Red]

Beautitude's posts are awesome.

[Lil Red]

Beautitude's posts are awesome.

[BG45]

Wait this is a modesty thread now?  *back out slowly* 

[carmenchristi]

I ran out of props on this thread. I NEVER run out of props!

[mysisterisalittlesister]

I predict the closing of this thread soon :p

[Basilisa Marie]

It's always a modesty thread. Don't you know that every time women talk about clothing, no matter what it is people have to tell them how wrong and immodest they are? It's like a rule of phatmass.  Right up there with anytime you vote for someone you're throwing your hat in the ring with Satan, and your liturgy can never be as holy as my liturgy.  :)  

[PhuturePriest]

I don't really think calling Saint Padre Pio a jerk especially to women is fair. This implies misogyny, which is obviously bad and a very big claim on a Saint. He certainly wasn't free from sin, but he is an outstanding Saint, and before we throw his image in the fire perhaps we should hold back judgement on him. He had modesty rules. So does the Vatican. The Vatican has quite strict modesty rules, in fact. If you try to go in and you don't fulfill the requirements, the Swiss Guard will tell you to take a hike and buy a skirt. I don't think he really had rules for men because men didn't really wear immodest clothing at the time (That I know of).

[carmenchristi]

I don't really think calling Saint Padre Pio a jerk especially to women is fair. This implies misogyny, which is obviously bad and a very big claim on a Saint. He certainly wasn't free from sin, but he is an outstanding Saint, and before we throw his image in the fire perhaps we should hold back judgement on him. He had modesty rules. So does the Vatican. The Vatican has quite strict modesty rules, in fact. If you try to go in and you don't fulfill the requirements, the Swiss Guard will tell you to take a hike and buy a skirt. I don't think he really had rules for men because men didn't really wear immodest clothing at the time (That I know of).

Actually, the rules aren't THAT strict. No short shorts or mini skirts, no spaghetti straps (you can go sleeveless as long as your shoulders are covered) no midriff showing, no rules about necklines as long as nothing is popping out. I'd say that's a pretty wide margin of leeway compared to what we are talking about here. And yes they let women wear p.ants.

[beatitude]

I don't really think calling Saint Padre Pio a jerk especially to women is fair. This implies misogyny, which is obviously bad and a very big claim on a Saint. He certainly wasn't free from sin, but he is an outstanding Saint, and before we throw his image in the fire perhaps we should hold back judgement on him. He had modesty rules. So does the Vatican. The Vatican has quite strict modesty rules, in fact. If you try to go in and you don't fulfill the requirements, the Swiss Guard will tell you to take a hike and buy a skirt. I don't think he really had rules for men because men didn't really wear immodest clothing at the time (That I know of).

 
You talk about misogyny as though it's a rare thing. It's extremely common. Trying to make out that it's rare and the preserve only of horrible people makes it that much harder to deal with. Nice guys fall into it too. Even saints. See my earlier point about St Augustine, who was far worse than Padre Pio - unless you don't consider it misogynistic to claim that women aren't made in God's image?
 
No one is suggesting that we throw Padre Pio's image in the fire. He's still a saint. But here he was wrong and he said and did things that were hurtful.
 
Having a dress code in place for the Vatican is not the same as denying someone access to a sacrament. The Vatican's situation is also slightly different in that many people go there just as tourists, and they also need to be told not to use flash photography or to be bellowing into their mobile phones. There have to be some rules in place to help people understand that this is not just any tourist attraction. Those rules are also not specific to women - and they aren't all that strict. Nor are they particularly precise. No one goes on about fingers' widths from the throat, for example.
 
There is also a right way and a wrong way to implement a dress code. At the Taize community, for example, they respectfully ask that no one come in to prayers with bare shoulders - and they provide baskets of cotton strips at all the entrances to the church, so that people who don't happen to be wearing the right kind of shirt don't need to go away again. You just take a piece of cotton and wrap it round your shoulders. That is a sensitive way to do it. No one is going to feel judged by that.
 
Men's clothing never ever has been scrutinised in the same way that women's has and this is why you don't hear of men being chastised for immodest dress in Padre Pio's day. It wasn't that all men dressed perfectly until 1968.

[Basilisa Marie]

I don't really think calling Saint Padre Pio a jerk especially to women is fair. This implies misogyny, which is obviously bad and a very big claim on a Saint. He certainly wasn't free from sin, but he is an outstanding Saint, and before we throw his image in the fire perhaps we should hold back judgement on him. He had modesty rules. So does the Vatican. The Vatican has quite strict modesty rules, in fact. If you try to go in and you don't fulfill the requirements, the Swiss Guard will tell you to take a hike and buy a skirt. I don't think he really had rules for men because men didn't really wear immodest clothing at the time (That I know of).

 

Yeah, it's a claim I'm making.  :)  You don't have to run around killing women and thinking they're the same as animals to be a misogynist.  I'm not throwing him in the fire, either.  It's just as bad to throw away a great saint because he had flaws as it is to ignore all the flaws he had.  Like Beatitude said, the modesty rules at the Vatican are different, it's a different situation.  I find it ESPECIALLY problematic (and ironic) that St.Pio would deny women the sacrament concerned with contrition and forgiveness of sin because he made a judgment about their personal conviction based solely on their clothing...And this is coming from a guy who supposedly could READ SOULS.  WHY bother with judging a woman's contrition based solely on her skirt length (or wearing a skirt at all) when you HAVE THE ABILITY to see what their true state of contrition is?  

 

If he had made all the men come to confession wearing a button down shirt and tie, then I wouldn't have as big of a problem with it, because THEN it would be clear he's trying to foster a respect for the sacrament in all people.  

[Papist]

:hijack:

 

Good confession requires contrition and the intent to not repeat the confessed sin(s). I can't read anyone's heart/souls, but Saint Padre Pio had this mystical gift. If Saint Padre Pio was a jerk, I do not know, but I would have to consider this.

[dominicansoul]

:hijack:

 

Good confession requires contrition and the intent to not repeat the confessed sin(s). I can't read anyone's heart/souls, but Saint Padre Pio had this mystical gift. If Saint Padre Pio was a jerk, I do not know, but I would have to consider this.

 

 

not to mention he had to have physical fights with satan almost every nite...if that doesn't put you in a bad mood, nothing will....

[beatitude]

:hijack:

 

Good confession requires contrition and the intent to not repeat the confessed sin(s). I can't read anyone's heart/souls, but Saint Padre Pio had this mystical gift.

 

There is no record of Padre Pio turning anyone away from confession except women who weren't dressed according to his standard.

 

By this logic, everyone else whose confession he ever heard (and he heard thousands) must have had a spirit of contrition - except these trollops. Who all just happened to be female.

 

Our souls are sacred and only God ever knows them fully. He's the only one who can; He made them. No matter what mystical insight and wisdom Padre Pio might have had, he could not know people 'through and through', as is said in Psalm 139. I believe that Padre Pio 'read souls', but I also think that his cult has attracted many superstitious anecdotes (some of the unverified stories told about him make it sound like a low budget movie with a telepathic main character) that don't really illustrate what is meant by that term. And to give him credit, he himself never claimed that he could know the quality of a person's repentance.

[PhuturePriest]

There is no record of Padre Pio turning anyone away from confession except women who weren't dressed according to his standard.

 

By this logic, everyone else whose confession he ever heard (and he heard thousands) must have had a spirit of contrition - except these trollops. Who all just happened to be female.

 

Our souls are sacred and only God ever knows them fully. He's the only one who can; He made them. No matter what mystical insight and wisdom Padre Pio might have had, he could not know people 'through and through', as is said in Psalm 139. I believe that Padre Pio 'read souls', but I also think that his cult has attracted many superstitious anecdotes (some of the unverified stories told about him make it sound like a low budget movie with a telepathic main character) that don't really illustrate what is meant by that term. And to give him credit, he himself never claimed that he could know the quality of a person's repentance.

 

He turned away people that were not penitent. This did include men.

[EmilyAnn]

He turned away people that were not penitent. This did include men.

And women who wear skirts less than eight inches below the knee are automatically not penitent?

[beatitude]

He turned away people that were not penitent. This did include men.

 

There are a couple stories of him refusing to grant absolution to men who had lied about their sins during the confession. I have not come across any story in which he refused to let a man even make a confession in the first place.

[beatitude]

Hmm, reading more about Padre Pio, it seems he also regarded dancing as an invitation to sin and one penitent had to pledge never to go to a dance again before receiving absolution.

 

This may not be true. All saints build up a collection of stories around them that can't be verified. If it's not true, this is proof that we mustn't accept just any anecdote about a saint in support of our own pet beliefs. If it is true - I am sorry, but saint or no saint, he was wrong. I am taking St Teresa of Avila's side on this one, she who leaped onto a table at recreation and cried out to her austere-living nuns, "Sisters! Let us dance for joy in the Lord!" before leading them all in the flamenco.

Edited April 9, 2013 by beatitude

[MarysLittleFlower]

Don't trust blindly.

 

I don't think that trusting that something is from the Church, is trusting blindly :) I mean, I have no reason to think that it's not.

 

I wouldn't trust our culture though, or society, or the society's standards. :)