22 October 2011

Vatican Dress Code for All Churches?

St. Peter's Basilica will refuse you entry if you're wearing:

-Shorts/skirts above the knee
-Sleeveless shirts
-Shirts exposing the navel
-Shirts for women that expose cleavage.

As it should. Ashley McGuire wonders why all Catholic churches couldn't adopt the same dress code, considering the atrocious way many come to the Holy Sacrifice these days. And the dress code, by the way, applies to all; Supreme Court justices and other famous public figures have been turned away at the door for violating the code.

On a related note, I was at a local parish waiting in line for confession, and it so happened that a funeral Mass was being held there at that time. I was amazed at the way the young women were dressed: short, clingy skirts, 9-inch heels, cleavage, etc. They looked like they were on their way to a nightclub. Even as a woman I nearly blushed and had to look away, nevermind the poor Catholic men, surrounded on all sides by this spectacle. Women demand to be treated with dignity, yet they walk around looking like high-class prostitutes. And as Catholic women, we ought to be helping Catholic men in their daily struggles to be chaste, but too often--out of cluelessness or carelessness--we make it much harder on them.