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Women in trousers - a grave warning by Cardinal Siri |
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Zu den drastischen Zeichen der Auflösung der Sittenordnung zählt die Vermännlichung der weiblichen Kleidung. Dankenswerterweise hat der englische Newsletter der FSSPX einen Brief von Kardinal Siri (Wunschnachfolger von Papst Pius XII., der aufgrund von Erpressungen trotz Stimmenmehrheit aus der Papstwahl gedrängt wurde) veröffentlicht, der sich gegen "Frauen in Hosen" wendet. Die keineswegs geringe Bedeutung des Themas geht aus den Ausführungen der Exzellenz klar hervor. (M. A. S.)
Society of St Pius X in Great Britain
December 2001 - January 2002 Newsletter
NOTIFICATION CONCERNING MEN'S DRESS WORN BY WOMEN
By Giuseppe Cardinal Siri
Genoa, June 12, 1960
To the
Reverend Clergy,
To all
Teaching sisters,
To the
beloved sons of Catholic Action,
To
Educators intending truly to follow Christian Doctrine. 1
I. The
first signs of our late arriving spring indicate that there is
this year
a certain increase in the use of men's dress by girls
and women,
even family mothers. Up until 1959, in Genoa, such
dress
usually meant the person was a tourist, but now it seems
to be a
significant number of girls and women from Genoa itself
who are
choosing at least onpleasure trips to wear men's dress
(men's
trousers).
The
extension of this behaviour obliges us to take serious
thought,
and we ask those to whom this Notification is
addressed
to kindly lend to the problem all the attention it
deserves
from anyone aware of being in any way responsible
before
God.
We seek
above all to give a balanced moral judgment upon the
wearing of
men's dress by women. In fact Our thoughts can only
bear upon
the moral question.
Firstly,
when it comes to covering of the female body, the wearing
of men's
trousers by women cannot be said to constitute AS
SUCH A
GRAVE OFFENCE AGAINST MODESTY, BECAUSE
trousers
certainly cover more of woman's body than do modern
women's
skirts.
Secondly,
however, clothes to be modest need not only to cover
the body
but also not to cling too closely to the body. Now it is
true that
much feminine clothing today clings closer than do
some trousers,
but trousers can be made to cling closer, in fact
generally
they do so, so the tight fit of such clothing gives us no
less
grounds for concern than does the exposure of the body. So
the
immodesty of men's trousers on women is an aspect of the
problem
which is not to be left out of an over-all judgment upon
them, even
if it is not to be artificially exaggerated either.
II.
However, it is a different aspect of women's wearing of men's
trousers
which seems to us the gravest.2
The
wearing of men's dress by women affects firstly the woman
herself,
by changing the feminine psychology proper to women;
secondly
it affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending
to vitiate
relationships between the sexes; thirdly it affects the
woman as
mother of her children by harming her dignity in her
children's
eyes. Each of these points is to be carefully
considered
in turn:-
A. MALE
DRESS CHANGES THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMAN.
In truth,
the motive impelling women to wear men's dress is
always
that of imitating, nay, of competing with, the man who is
considered
stronger, less tied down, more independent. This
motivation
shows clearly that male dress is the visible aid to
bringing
about a mental attitude of being "like a man". Secondly,
ever since
men have been men, the clothing a person wears,
demands,
imposes and modifies that person's gestures,
attitudes
and behaviour, such that from merely being worn
outside,
clothing comes to impose a particular frame of mind
inside.
Then let us
add that woman wearing man's dress always more
or less
indicates her reacting to her femininity as though it is
inferiority
when in fact it is only diversity. The perversion of her
psychology
is clear to be seen.3
These
reasons, summing up many more, are enough to warn
us how
wrongly women are made to think by the wearing of
men's
dress.
B. MALE
DRESS TENDS TO VITIATE RELATIONSHIPS
BETWEEN
WOMEN AND MEN.
In truth
when relationships between the two sexes unfold with
the coming
of age, an instinct of mutual attraction is
predominant.
The essential basis of this attraction is a diversity
between
the two sexes which is made possible only by their
complementing
or completing one another. If then this "diversity"
becomes
less obvious because one of its major external signs
is
eliminated and because the normal psychological structure is
weakened,
what results is the alteration of a fundamental factor
in the
relationship.
The
problem goes further still. Mutual attraction between the
sexes is
preceded both naturally, and in order of time, by that
sense of
shame which holds the rising instincts in check,
imposes
respect upon them, and tends to lift to a higher level of
mutual
esteem and healthy fear everything that those instincts
would push
onwards to uncontrolled acts. To change that
clothing
which by its diversity reveals and upholds nature's limits
and
defence-works, is to flatten out the distinctions and to help
pull down
the vital defence-works of the sense of shame.
It is at
least to hinder that sense. And when the sense of shame
is
hindered from putting on the brakes, then relationships
between
man and women sink degradingly down to pure
sensuality,
devoid of all mutual respect or esteem.
Experience
is there to tell us that when woman is de-feminised
then
defences are undermined and weakness increases.4
C. MALE
DRESS HARMS THE DIGNITY OF THE MOTHER IN
HER
CHILDREN'S EYES.
All
children have an instinct for the sense of dignity and decorum
of their
mother. Analysis of the first inner crisis of children when
they
awaken to life around them even before they enter upon
adolescence,
shows how much the sense of their mother
counts.
Children are as sensitive as can be on this point. Adults
have
usually left all that behind them and think no more on it. But
we could
do well to recall to mind the severe demands that
children
instinctively make of their own mother, and the deep and
even
terrible reactions roused in them by observation of their
mother's
misbehaviour. Many lines of later life are here traced
out - and
not for good - in these early inner dramas of infancy
and
childhood.
The child
may not know the definition of exposure, frivolity or
infidelity
but he possesses an instinctive sixth sense to
recognize them
when they occur, to suffer from them, and be
bitterly
wounded by them in his soul.
III. Let
us think seriously on the import of everything said so far,
even if
woman's appearing in man's dress does not
immediately
give rise to all the upset caused by grave
immodesty.
The
changing of feminine psychology does fundamental and, in
the long
run, irreparable damage to the family, to conjugal
fidelity,
to human affections and to human society. True the
effects of
wearing unsuitable dress are not all to be seen within
a short
time. But one must think of what is being slowly and
insidiously
worn down, torn apart, perverted.
Is any
satisfying reciprocity between husband and wife
imaginable,
if feminine psychology be changed? Or is any true
education
of children imaginable, which is so delicate in its
procedure,
so woven of imponderable factors in which the
mother's
intuition and instinct play the decisive part in those
tender
years? What will these women be able to give their
children
when they will so long have worn trousers that their
self-esteem
goes more by their competing with the men than by
their
functioning as women?
Why, we
ask, ever since men have been men, or rather since
they
became civilized - why have men in all times and places
been irresistibly
borne to make a differentiated division between
the
functions of the two sexes? Do we not have here strict
testimony
to the recognition by all mankind of a truth and a law
above man?
To sum up,
wherever women wear men's dress, it is to be
considered
a factor in the long run tearing apart human order.
IV.
The logical consequence of everything presented so far is
that
anyone in a position of responsibility should be possessed
by a SENSE
of ALARM in the true and proper meaning of the
word, a severe
and decisive ALARM.
We address
a grave warning to parish priests, to all priests in
general
and to confessors in particular, to members of every
kind of
association, to all religious, to all nuns, especially to
teaching
Sisters.
We invite
them to become clearly conscious of the problem so
that
action will follow. This consciousness is what matters. It will
suggest
the appropriate action in due time. But let it not counsel
us to give
way in the face of inevitable change, as though we are
confronted
by a natural evolution of mankind and so on!
Men may
come and men may go, because God has left plenty of
room for
the to and fro of their free-will; but the substantial lines
of nature
and the not less substantial lines of Eternal Law have
never changed,
are not changing and never will change. There
are bounds
beyond which one may stray as far as one sees fit,
but to do
so ends in death;5 there are limits which empty
philosophical
fantasizing may have one mock or not take
seriously,
but they put together an alliance of hard facts and
nature to
chastise anybody who steps over them. And history has
sufficiently
taught, with frightening proof from the life and death of
nations,
that the reply to all violators of the outline of "humanity"
is always,
sooner or later, catastrophe.
>From
the dialectic of Hegel onwards, we have had dinned in our
ears what
are nothing but fables, and by dint of hearing them so
often,
many people end up by getting used to them, if only
passively.
But the truth of the matter is that Nature and Truth, and
the Law
bound up in both, go their imperturbable way, and they
cut to
pieces the simpletons who upon no grounds whatsoever
believe in
radical and far-reaching changes in the very structure
of man.
The
consequences of such violations are not a new outline of
man, but
disorders, hurtful instability of all kinds, the frightening
dryness of
human souls, the shattering increase in the number
of human
castaways, driven long since out of people's sight and
mind to
live out their decline in boredom, sadness and rejection.
Aligned on
the wrecking of the eternal norms are to be found the
broken
families, lives cut short before their time, hearts and
homes gone
cold, old people cast to one side, youngsters
wilfully
degenerate and - at the end of the line - souls in despair
and taking
their own lives. All of which human wreckage gives
witness to
the fact that the "line of God" does not give way, nor
does it
admit of any adaptation to the delirious dreams of the
so-called
philosophers!
V.
We have said that those to whom the present Notification is
addressed are invited to take serious alarm at the
problem in
hand.
Accordingly they know what they have to say, starting with
little
girls on their mother's knee.
They know
that without exaggerating or turning into fanatics, they
will need
to strictly limit how far they tolerate women dressing
like men,
as a general rule.
They know
they must never be so week as to let anyone believe
that they
turn a blind eye to a custom which is slipping and
undermining
the moral standing of all institutions.
They, the
priests, know that the line they have to take in the
confessional,
while not holding women dressing like men to be
automatically
a grave fault, must be sharp and decisive.
Everybody
will kindly give thought to the need for a united line of
action,
re-enforced on every side by the co-operation of all men
of good
will and all enlightened minds, so as to create a true
dam to
hold back the flood.
Those of
you responsible for souls in whatever capacity
understand
how useful it is to have for allies in this defensive
campaign
men of the arts, the media and the crafts. The position
taken by
fashion design houses, their brilliant designers and the
clothing industry,
is of crucial importance in this whole question.
Artistic
sense, refinement and good taste meeting together can
find
suitable but dignified solutions as to the dress for women to
wear when
they must use a motorcycle or engage in this or that
exercise
or work. What matters is to preserve modesty together
with the
eternal sense of femininity, that femininity which more
than
anything else all children will continue to associate with the
face of
their mother.
We do not
deny that modern life sets problems and makes
requirements
unknown to our grandparents. But we state that
there are
values more needing to be protected than fleeting
experiences,
and that for anybody of intelligence there are
always
good sense and good taste enough to find acceptable
and
dignified solutions to problems as they come up.
Out of
charity we are fighting against the flattening out of
mankind,
against the attack upon those differences on which
rests the
complementarity of man and woman.
When we
see a woman in trousers, we should think not so
much of
her as of all mankind, of what it will be when women will
have
masculanised themselves for good. Nobody stands to gain
by helping
to bring about a future age of vagueness, ambiguity,
imperfection
and, in a word, monstrosities.
This
letter of Ours is not addressed to the public, but to those
responsible
for souls, for education, for Catholic associations.
Let them
do their duty, and let them not be sentries caught
asleep at
their post while evil crept in.
Cardinal
Siri
Archbishop
of Genoa.
__________________________
Translator's
Notes:
1.
At the end of the Cardinal's Notification, he explains that it is
not
addressed by him directly to the public at large, but only
indirectly,
through the Catholic leaders here listed. However, that
was in
1960, when the Church still had a framework of leaders.
In 2000,
those capable by their Faith of responding to the
Cardinal's
instruction are scattered among the public at large, to
whom
therefore his instruction is fittingly diffused.
2.
Trousers on women are worse than mini-skirts, said Bishop
de Castro
Mayer, because while mini-skirts attack the senses,
women's
trousers attack man's highest spiritual faculty, the
mind.
Cardinal Siri explains why, in depth.
3.
The enormous increase since 1960 in the practice and public
flaunting
of the vice against nature is surely to be attributed in
part to
this perversion of psychology.
4.
When woman is feminine, she has the strength God gives to
her.
When she is de-feminised, she has only the strength she
gives
herself.
5.
All great art and literature testifies to this moral structure of the
universe
which one violates at one's peril, and which is as much
part of
the natural order as is its physical structure. The Cardinal
is here at
the heart of the question.
Etika.com adds some links:
http://members.tripod.de/? vhp/index.html
CHRISTIAN WOMEN'S
HEADCOVERY DIRECTORY: http://expage.com/page/headcovering
Another text in German
language: http://www.etika.com/deutsch8/80kl3.htm