Joseph Shaw of the LMS Chairman blog is currently running a series on traditionalists and their fashion outlook in reaction to Tracey Rowland's comments that the old Mass can seen culturally inaccessible to outsiders because, essentially, many traditionalists dress as though the year is 1952. Generally I support reverent, dignified dress at Mass, but wish people would keep the rules few. The local FSSP church has a sign with bullet point list of dress requirements. The neckline on women's tops cannot go more than the width of two fingers below the base of the neck. The Ukrainian parish I attend has one guideline on its website: Dress as though you are entering a house of God.
Perhaps the best anecdote about traditionalists and modesty, which is more a frame of mind than any particular article of clothing, comes from the fellow who comments here as Lord of Bollocks. His mother, during her days with the FSSPX, was pregnant during a Texas summer and did not wear a veil lest she pass out from dehydration and heat. After several lectures from the priest and parishioners about how seductive female hair is to men and the temptation men endure during Mass on account of un-veiled women, she found the perfect solution. She buzz-cut her hair off.
As vague as the Ukrainian might sound, I prefer it to arbitrary measurements.
ReplyDeleteMy somewhat alternative take on the whole issue - there would be no need to post modesty guidelines if society, as a whole, still had any sense of how to dress properly for an occasion in general. And if so much effort is expunged for proper dress at Mass, then why not be consistent and speak to the need to dress properly at all times? Additionally, having been in the SSPX for nearly a decade, I find it ridiculous that women are held to such a high standard while their husbands/brothers/sons look like slobs (I mean really - here you have a family with a mother and daughters who are dressed with dignity (to borrow a phrase) alongside a father and sons in shorts and T-shirts). This even after some SSPX priests, laudably, say that grown men should not wear shorts (the attire of boys) outside of athletic uses. I say we all (re-)adopt a sense of dignity and decorum in one's attire, for both men and women, and leave the bullet points aside.
ReplyDeleteAnytime The Great Veil Debate rears its ugly head, especially amongst traditionalist circles, I consider the lowly biretta, that lovely tri-cornered headpiece, sometimes betufted, sometimes not: "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head" (1 Cor 11:4).
ReplyDeletePerhaps one should follow the adage about 'sauce for the goose' etc. If dress codes are going to be imposed on those who fund these enterprises perhaps they should, in turn, impose a dress code on the clergy and ban the use of tabard pattern vestments lined with board - often of the most execrable taste - and insist on decent sacred vestments.
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