Shameless Spring and Summers: Fashion, Sport and the Stripping Away of Catholic Decency

Into the Moral Abyss

“[O]ne cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and condition,” lamented Pope Benedict XV in 1921, that “made foolish by desire to please, they do not see to what a degree the indecency of their clothing shocks every honest man, and offends God.”1 After which he observed, “Most of them would formerly have blushed for those toilettes [adornments] as for a grave fault against Christian modesty; now it does not suffice for them to exhibit them on the public thoroughfares; they do not fear to cross the threshold of the churches, to assist at the Holy sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seducing food of shameful passions to the Eucharistic Table where one receives the heavenly Author of purity.” What would the same Pope say today? ... one shudders at his answer.

Such is the present state of debauchery that has consumed all Western societies. America, never being converted, and apostate Europe are firmly trapped in this moral abyss. In these places, upon leaving home, a Catholic is immediately confronted with grave offenses against modesty — particularly with women, though not exclusively — which in previous times would have been unthinkable, much less countenanced in public. In warmer months, merely walking around your neighborhood can be an occasion of sin. Step into a grocery store, a restaurant or a department store and you will similarly find no relief. As the August Pontiff mentioned above, gone is the influence of Catholic standards of modesty and the shame by which the former was enforced, both individually and socially. Further, it is not unreasonable to speculate that the prostitute of old would blush at the way modern, self-styled Christian women dress.

Feminism: A Big Problem but not THE Problem

Increasingly, women are being blamed for this crisis in modesty and public morals — rightly so, as they are the most flagrant offenders. Worse, they actively encourage their daughters to follow their example and shield them from correction. This criticism is just, and long overdue. For decades women have been allowed to liberate themselves from their duties towards God, the Church and their husbands. Put succinctly, it is that deadly feminism, nothing other than a socio-political movement dedicated to the rationalization of female sin and the overthrow of Christian patriarchy (rule by men). Ignoring the example of Our Blessed Lady, modern women are puffed up with pride, regularly cross-dress,2 no longer wear head coverings at Church, use obscenities, vulgar language and boast of their promiscuity, among other things. These are indisputable facts.

Yet this analysis is lacking, simultaneously laying too much blame on women, which not to be confused with the proper amount. The careful reader will have noticed that the above mentioned “women have been allowed,” implying some other culpable party, namely men. It is men who bear the greater share of blame, for we possess superior intelligence,3 a natural disposition to leadership4 and considerably greater physical strength, and therefore far greater responsibility. The question then becomes: how did we allow ourselves to be overpowered?

The answer lies with weak and wicked men among our recent ancestors. Specifically, those in positions of domestic and civil authority who permitted women to emancipate themselves from the moral law and from the obedience they owe to their husbands and fathers. These are the same men who would never repeat the charge of St. Paul — “Wives, be subject to your husbands in all things”5 — and who, if by some miracle found the courage to say so publicly, would immediately equivocate: insisting that the exercise of authority is more or less tyrannical, and that a wife need only comply with what she herself agrees with. The implication, of course, is that a wife risks nothing (including her soul?)6 by refusing obedience and honor to her husband.

Women do bear their share of blame, but it is men, possessed of greater intelligence, strength and natural authority, who will answer for having surrendered all three. May God save the patriarchy.

A Short Preface to the Exhortation

With all this in mind, we can now turn to the focus of this essay: what we believe is a long overdue moral exhortation to Catholic men and women, alike. While the preponderance of responsibility falls on men, the presentation that follows, drawn from the work of Walenty Majdański, a Polish author writing in 1939 and published in Fr. Maximilian Kolbe’s Militia Immaculata, is directed toward women and mothers in particular. Nevertheless, it will be up to men, specifically fathers, to lovingly enforce these standards and provide a good example for the gentler sex.

By way of background, in 1938 Kolbe had commissioned Mr. Majdański7 to prick the conscience of the struggling Polish nation. A lifelong teacher and tutor, his preferred weapon was the pen.8 Naturally, he was also a dedicated fighter in anti-abortion campaigning. His writing style, not unlike our own, tended toward the polemical, though given the circumstances both then and especially now, this is better understood as urgency. The softer methods have not worked for decades.. dare we say, for centuries.

Now, without further ado, The Journal of American Reform is pleased to present Mr. Walenty Majdański’s 1939 moral exhortation, preparing his readers for the onslaught of immodesty in the warmer months. His advice was needed as much then as it is today.

Stripping Away Shame During Summer in Fashion and Sport

To be best prepared for marriage, one must spend one’s youth chastely. Anyone who observes the sixth commandment in their youth introduces spiritual rule into their life, and even if they are a simple person, they live at a very high moral level. When such a young man marries, it is very easy for him to introduce and continue the rule of the soul over the senses into his married life. Therefore, it is not at all impossible for him to maintain either marital integrity or periodic abstinence. Why? Because he was able to maintain purity of morals throughout his youth, always and everywhere.

How easy it is for these spouses to adapt to the Church’s demands these days! From their earliest youth, they never made a tragedy... out of the dictates of the Sixth Commandment. In other words, they were always cultured people, for in them, the spirit ruled the flesh.

If today you see so many married couples complaining that the Church demands too much of them, then know that even when they were young, they also thought that the Church... “demands too much of them.”

God does not demand more from man than he is capable of — if he demands something, it does not mean that he demands “too much,” but that the person who claims so is a moral failure. For “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Instead of calling himself an incompetent, such a person calls the Church “overly demanding.”

WHOEVER IS NOT PURE, IS NOT YOUNG!

This control over the senses, which comes from keeping the Sixth Commandment, plays a major role in keeping the other Commandments; for keeping the Sixth Commandment is often the most difficult in youth. And it is known that whoever knows what is hardest will also know what is easier.

If so many young people today shun the Holy Sacraments and say all sorts of nonsense about the Church, they are usually slobs who can’t keep the Sixth Commandment. If these young boys and girls knew just one thing: keeping the Sixth Commandment, they would never shun the Church. Because what does the Church want? “For you, young man, to be brave enough and able to take control of your senses so that you are pure. THE CHURCH WANTS TO UNITE YOU WITH CHRIST, AND YOU COWER BEFORE CHRIST AND FROM HIM... YOU FLEE.”

And what else does keeping the sixth commandment give you? — It gives you the art of self-control, which can always be useful to you, because “what eyesight is to a bird and claws to a lion, self-control is to a man.”

Maintaining moral purity also brings great health, to such an extent that the basis of a young man’s physical fitness is the maintenance of complete moral purity. If you compare two young men who were born in the same health and who were raised in the same conditions, the one who spent his youth more purer will be much healthier, firmer, and stronger in adulthood.

Cleanliness in youth is the foundation of lifelong health. In Poland, every year, 300,000 seriously ill people from rural areas cannot be admitted to hospitals because there is no room, or because they lack the money. For the same reason, every year, 60,000 patients cannot have surgeries. We lack hospitals, doctors, or money for treatment; many children lack bread; we lack hygienic housing. Therefore, we must be even more concerned about the health that every young person brings with them throughout their lives, provided they maintain chastity. We must remember that as early as 1920, 1.2 million people were rotting in Poland from various diseases stemming from debauchery. And how many such people are there today? How many diseases are spread because of them? How much misery? How much money is spent on treating such patients. (For example: in 1920, the United States suffered losses of $628 million due to venereal diseases...). How many die shamefully, for they have nothing to boast about? And is it consistent with the honor of Poles to soil themselves with debauchery? That is why we must establish the principle that EVERYTHING THAT WEAKENS THE PURITY OF CUSTOMS MUST BE REMOVED FROM POLAND. This principle implies that everything that weakens the sense of shame in youth must be removed from physical exercise and sports.

EASY AND DIFFICULT CONDITIONS FOR MAINTAINING PURITY

As we can see, keeping the Sixth Commandment brings enormous benefits: it prepares one for marriage, protects vocations to the priesthood and monastic life, teaches self-control, brings one closer to Jesus Christ from early youth, introduces the rule of the spirit over the body into the life of a young person, it protects against disease, provides a great supply of health for life, and develops a sense of honor, dignity, and the awareness of oneself as a courageous person. Maintaining chastity is therefore a great act of mastery over life, and chastity is the chief virtue of youth, so that no one is young who is not chaste. This is why we must strive at all costs to ensure that our youth are courageous enough to maintain purity of morals.

But to this end, we must facilitate conditions for youth to maintain moral purity, as they can be both difficult and easy. When conditions are too difficult, few youth will maintain this moral purity, perhaps only heroic individuals. Today, youth encounter public lack of shame and public scandal of all kinds at almost every turn. If we do not put an end to this disgusting state of affairs, it may soon be that only the exceptionally strong among young people will maintain moral purity. For just as parents with numerous children must be given better conditions than they have today to raise their children, SO MUCH MUST YOUNG PEOPLE BE GIVEN BETTER CONDITIONS SO THAT THEY ARE NOT TOO TEMPTED TO IMPURITY BY ALL THAT SURROUNDS THEM!

This shamelessness, which is everywhere today, doesn’t have to be! It spread through people, and so people can eradicate it, especially young people themselves and their parents. Otherwise, the Catholic revival among Poland’s youth will be in vain, and in vain do we, parents, diligently guard our children, when terrible scandal awaits them among the people.

So what should we do? What better conditions should we provide for young people to help them maintain their moral purity? We will devote some attention to this in our summer issues, because the most difficult conditions for maintaining moral purity are faced by our young people right now: during the summer.

A MOTHER WHO STRIPS HER DAUGHTERS OF SHAME

Creating better conditions so that young people can more easily preserve purity of morals is not at all difficult. One need only have a little sense and a little courage. This applies especially to women.

Why, for example, would a mother dress her little daughter so badly that she’d be deprived of her sense of shame from infancy? Who ordered the Polish mother to dress her little ones so appallingly short? After all, mothers today dress their little daughters in dresses so short that there’s no room left for a... skirt. It’s not really a dress, but a kind of tunic. Anyone who dresses their daughter fashionably no longer dresses her in a... dress, but rather just this... tunic. The child goes without a dress in summer and winter: a tunic is enough, which will be called a “dress” in the “old-fashioned” way for some time. And so mother herself wears an ever shorter dress, while she no longer requires her little daughter to wear... a dress at all.

Then, when the little girl has grown into a young woman and goes to her first dance or ball, how does the “fashionable” mother dress her? The dress must be long at the bottom, but cut almost to the waist at the top.

And how does the “fashionable” mother dress her daughter when summer comes? Again, wherever she can, she cuts the girl’s dress shorter, and it “must” be more or less... transparent. And that same mother complains that there is such corruption today, yet does not see that she has done everything in her power to strip her daughter of modesty — if only through her clothing — and that her daughter, by her dress alone, is stripping those around her of their modesty as well.

It’s true that the more undressed a daughter is, the more “fashionable,” the more shameless she is, the more “successful” she is. But somehow she can’t get married, or when she does, “marry” usually means “to hell.” Is that not so?

One must understand what today’s fashion is for. It exists so that the married woman will not want to be a mother — that is why fashion is so form-fitting. It exists to accustom little girls from their earliest years to never developing a sense of modesty. It exists to strip grown girls of their sense of shame and to inflame the passions of men. Do you know this, Polish mother? Have you thought about what to do so that women’s fashion in Poland might be beautiful, healthy, and at once Polish and Catholic?

WHAT DOES A GOOD CATHOLIC MOTHER DO IN THE SUMMER?

What does a bold and wise mother do now in the summer season? She gives her little daughter a proper skirt. She dresses her daughter in a frock that is both beautiful and does not strip her daughter of modesty. Under the more or less transparent dress she puts a slip, she adds short elasticated sleeves, she gives her a dress that falls well below the knee — not by just a few millimeters. When her daughter goes to the baths or to the beach, she does not allow her to walk around the vicinity of the beach or baths in a swimsuit — not alone, not with other girls, and certainly not in mixed company. At the beach and in the water she requires her to stay only where women bathe and sunbathe on their own.

At home, when sons and daughters are present together, she does not allow any child to walk about in a swimsuit. In the yard she likewise does not permit even a small child to go about in a swimsuit. Sunbathing at home, on the veranda, near the house, or in the garden she allows only to boys alone or girls alone, and only where, nearby, there are at that time only boys or only girls.

The mother herself sews — if she cannot buy them — special swimsuits for her children that are more in keeping with Catholic principles of modesty, whenever they take part in sports or sunbathe.

In this way the children of that mother enjoy in summer the benefits of sun and water bathing, take part in sports, and at the same time give no one cause for scandal; while they themselves preserve their dignity and modesty.

To be sure, this mother was very afraid at first to dress her children this way, but because she was a courageous woman she took her courage in hand: she began to dress her daughters in a Catholic manner, she began to dress her sons and daughters for sport and for the beach in a Catholic manner, she required her children to conduct themselves there in a Catholic manner. It was hard for the mother and hard for the children, for they were mocked at every turn for not being “fashionable,” for being “backward” — the children sometimes came home in tears, and so on. But the mother encouraged her children to boldness every day, during their evening prayers together, SO THAT THEY WOULD BE BRAVE, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT FEAR PEOPLE, but God — so that they would BOLDLY AND PUBLICLY set an example to others of how one ought to dress and how one ought to behave. This went on for three years. Today that bold and wise mother sees how other mothers are beginning to follow in her footsteps.

WHAT DO BRAVE CATHOLIC ATHLETES DO IN THE SUMMER?

What are summer sunbaths for, what are water sports for, what indeed are all sports and physical education for? — So that the nation may be healthier. But we must remember what we wrote at the outset: that the foundation of health is the preservation of purity of morals. And purity of morals is the greater, the greater the sense of modesty. MODESTY IS A GREAT SHIELD AGAINST IMPURITY. The trouble is that in sport and physical education such customs have taken hold as strip the athlete, the one exercising, and all those who watch of their modesty. What are these harmful customs? One is immodest dress; the other, and the greatest, is that boys and girls, men and women, spend time together or train TOGETHER in those same outfits.

The whole point is to arrange things in physical education, in sports, on beaches, and so forth, so that people benefit in health without at the same time losing their modesty. Young Catholic athletes of Poland can do this! It only takes courage!

Among young people there are many who are themselves ashamed of that nakedness, even though they take part in it themselves in the summer. But they stay silent and wait to see if anyone will speak up... And so our whole nation, when summer comes, strips itself ever more of... modesty.

Will this go on much longer? — Young Catholic athletes, where are you? Where is Catholic youth? Where are the parent associations at schools? Where are the fathers, the mothers? Where are the teachers? Where are the authorities?

We must have sport, we must have physical education — and ever more widespread and ever better — but we must also have health of body and soul, and therefore we must have purity of morals, and therefore we must have MODESTY! Otherwise the vitality of our youth will fall apart. Is that not so?

LEGAL MEASURES - NECESSARY AND IMMEDIATE

It has come to the point that this nakedness, brought in by summer vacationers from the cities, is now spreading even in the countryside: it has come to the point that “cultured” parents send small children outside completely naked so they may “benefit” from the sun. It has come to the point that an honest person, when he goes to a summer resort, has nowhere to rest. Naked bodies everywhere. No restraint, no protest.

An uncompromising battle must be waged against this, wherever and however one can. That means: drawing attention to it, shaming, boycotting, not allowing it for one’s own children, not allowing it in one’s own homes, yards, fields, gardens, waters, villages, and towns — working against it in village and city councils, in legislative bodies, in newspapers, at meetings — influencing one another. Do not fear shameless people! Every organization has a voice: rowing clubs, sports clubs, city councils, village councils, members of parliament, the government, priests, youth, prefect-priests, MOTHERS, FATHERS!

The law should establish as soon as possible:

1. that beaches and bathing areas should be separate for men and separate for women.

2. that swimsuits may be worn only at the beach and in bathing areas.

3. that in all other water and land sports, swimsuits may not be used.

4. that in public sporting displays, both sexes may not appear together.

5. that in individual sports and physical exercises intended for adults and requiring an exposing costume, both sexes may not appear together.

6. that girls and boys may not participate in physical education together, from preschool through university.

7. that coeducation should not exist, wherever possible, in primary schools or in any secondary schools.

8. that short bloomers-style uniforms are required in all schools during gymnastics and sports lessons.

Until these laws are put into effect, let each person on his own initiative do what he can so that both he himself and others conduct themselves morally in summer. One must oneself dress in proper attire for sport; one must oneself avoid beaches shared by both sexes and go only to separate ones; one must oneself behave morally in physical exercise. Fathers and Mothers should dress morally themselves, and they should dress their children accordingly. Each person must regard himself and his family as an apostle who will be the first to begin living summer life in a Catholic manner.

To put all of this into practice requires extraordinary courage. NOTHING DEMANDS MORE COURAGE AND STRENGTH THAN INTRODUCING PURITY OF MORALS AND MODEST DRESS INTO ONE’S OWN LIFE AND INTO THE LIVES OF OTHERS. Whoever fears people will not dare to do what we have written of here. And so this article is intended only for courageous people ready to follow the voice of God’s grace.

END.

CONSIDER SUPPORTING THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN REFORM!

As I intend to devote more and more time to this political project, I want to continue to provide free, educational material, whether visual (graphics) or written (essays, translations and a forthcoming book) content. If you have benefited from my work in any way, kindly consider supporting The Journal financially. On a personal note, I am married and duty-bound to provide for my family, so any help, big or small, is appreciated. Subscribe or make a one-time donation.

Regardless, the production of free material will continue, hopefully with ever-increasing quality, and I will keep all my subscribers notified of my plans.

In addition to Substack, the home of The Journal, my work, graphics and commentary can be found on the following platforms:

X: @AmericanReform_

Telegram: @American_Reform