Father Louis Campbell On The Virtue of Modesty Once Again

Sunday Sermon for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

by Father Louis J. Campbell

(Prefaced by a foreword from Thomas A. Droleskey)

[Publisher-Editor's Foreword: As readers are aware, defending the Virtue of Modesty is something that is near and dear to the Catholic hearts of the Droleskey family. Two articles on this site that were published in 2010, Gradually Accepting Naturalism's Informality and Revolutions Have Consequences, part two, have dealt with this subject that so many Catholics all across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide believe is irrelevant to them, that we "just have to get with" the times and that it is "prideful" to dress too differently than others around us as we might make them "feel" bad or inferior by doing so. Fashions do change, right?

[No. Fashions may change. The enduring Virtue of Modesty does not change. There are absolute norms that govern how we dress. Pope Pius XII noted this very clearly in an address to the Latin Union of High Fashion on November 8, 1957:

This second virtue, modesty - the very word “modesty” comes from modus, a measure or limit - probably better expresses the function of governing and dominating the passions, especially sensual passions. It is the natural bulwark of chastity. It is its effective rampart, because it moderates acts closely connected with the very object of chastity [...] Yet no matter how broad and changeable the relative morals of styles may be, there is always an absolute norm to be kept after having heard the admonition of conscience warning against approaching danger: style must never be a proximate occasion of sin. [...] An excess of immodesty in fashion involves, in practice, the cut of the garment. The garment must not be evaluated according to the estimation of a decadent or already corrupt society, but according to the aspirations of a society which prizes the dignity and seriousness of its public attire. [...] It is often said almost with passive resignation that fashions reflect the customs of a people. But it would be more exact and much more useful to say that they express the decision and moral direction that a nation intends to take: either to be shipwrecked in licentiousness or maintain itself at the level to which it has been raised by religion and civilization. (Pope Pius XII, Address to the Congress of the Latin Union of High Fashion, November 8, 1957; as found in Norms for Modesty, which is on the website of the National Coalition for Clergy and the Laity, which also includes links to Rome's Decrees on Modesty in Dress and Cardinal Siri’s Notification Concerning Men's Dress Worn by Women. Pope Pius XII's entire address may be purchased for fifty cents at MIQ Center Catholic Books: Papal Decrees, Encyclicals.)

 

[One of the worst aspects of the false religion of conciliarism is how the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service has resulted in the gradual acceptance of gross indecency of dress as thoroughly acceptable in the context of putative offerings of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Some of the attire that is worn--or not worn, as the case might be in many instances--in the Novus Ordo world make some of the pagans of yore blush with shame. Offense is given to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in churches where He was once housed sacramentally and scandal is given to the little ones whose purity and innocence is so precious to Him. This Novus Ordo spirit has infected many Catholics, perhaps even some of your own family members or friends, who are immersed in the make-believe world wrought by Summorum Pontificum.

[The false spirit of conciliarism is such that the compromises that are necessary to accept having "the Mass" offered in "communion with the 'pope'" lead to compromises in the lives of many of the Catholics who go to Motu Masses (or simulations of the Mass in those instances where presbyters are the officiants). "Relax." "Don't be too strict." "Just go along with the times." "Things change, you know." Really? Try telling that to Saint John Mary Vianney, the Cure of Ars, or to Padre Pio or to Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, who had to stare down gun-toting Nicaraguans who were upset with her insistence upon exacting standards of Modesty in the tropical climate of that Central American nation. The compromises necessary to "have Mass" to please the local non-bishop in accordance with Summorum Pontificum have seen not a few priests and presbyters in the indult/Motu world called on the carpet for attempting to insist on Modesty in their chapels.You want a Motu Mass? You do what the local "bishop" says, and if the local "bishop" believes that strict standards of modesty are too "harsh," well, then, that's just one more part of your Catholic integrity that you will have to sacrifice to be in "communion" with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Too bad for Catholic truth. Too bad for the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity. Too bad for the good of souls. Too bad.

[Very sadly, of course, the spirit of the world with which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made its "official reconciliation" is such that even a lot of Catholics who assist at Masses offered by priests who recognize and accept the canonical-doctrine that those who defect the Faith in even one thing are no longer Catholic and cannot hold ecclesiastical office within the Catholic Church legitimately feel free to scoff at the Virtue of Modest as they dress in scandalous attire that truly shocks the conscience.

[What's the point of going to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition in such a venue when one is unwilling to divest himself or herself of the worldly attitudes that have been embraced and propagated by the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the Novus Ordo?

[What is the Catholic rationale for any truly ordained priest to refrain from exhorting the faithful to adhere to strict standards of Modesty for the sake of their own souls and those of others? What? The "fear" that they will go elsewhere? Isn't that the tired refrain that is used by so many in the conciliar church ("We don't want them to stop coming to Mass, you know.") What's the point of going to Mass if one is committing, in the objective order of things as subjective culpability is left solely to God, Who alone reads the hearts and minds of us sinners, sins against Modesty and are serving as a near occasion of sin for others? What's the point? There is none.

[This is why the true apostolic courage exhibited by Father Louis J. Campbell in the sermon he will deliver today, Sunday, September 12, 2010, the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, at Saint Jude Shrine in Stafford, Texas, is to be applauded and supported by means of our prayers. Please do read Father Campbell's sermon with great care as he is a true pastor of souls who cares for his own eternal salvation and that of the flock who have entrusted themselves to his pastoral direction.

[I thank Father Campbell for the most kind permission that he gave me yesterday, June 30, 2012, the Commemoration of Saint Paul. for publishing his inspiring, courageous sermon on this website.

[Please say three Hail Marys right now for Father Louis J. Campbell. Thank you.

[Sincerely yours in Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, Thomas A. Droleskey, Ph.D., Publisher-Editor, www.Christorchaos.com]

Sermon for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Sunday, July 1, 2012

by Father Louis J. Campbell

 

[Thomas A. Droleskey afterword: Thank you, Father Campbell! Isn't time to pray a Rosary now?]

“When she is good, she is very, very good, but…”

One event in the history of the world gives human life its purpose and meaning – the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, on the hill of Calvary, in which He poured out His Precious Blood to take away the sins of the world. In this only perfect and acceptable Sacrifice to God the Father, He was both Priest and Victim, offering up His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity on the altar of the Cross. It is this same offering which is made present for us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which He first celebrated with His Apostles at the Last Supper, and which we celebrate whenever the true Mass is offered on our altars.

This Acceptable Sacrifice of the Son of God was an act of perfect obedience and submission to the will of the Father, even unto death on the Cross. It is therefore the perfect model for us of the obedience and the acceptance of the Father’s will that is required of every human being who wishes to live in a right relationship with God.

As St. Augustine comments, “Peace is the tranquility of order.” God tells us in His holy Word what that right order is. There is a structure and an order of obedience that unites all things under God, and without which there is chaos. Christ Himself is in obedience to His Father. If there was anything about Him that stood out, it was His obedience.

We can be related to God only according to the order that He wills. When we break that order then we create disunity, confusion and chaos, which do not reflect the nature of God. But there will be no peace where there is lack of the order intended by God. Everything created must be in its proper relationship with everything else, and all things must be rightly ordered to God through obedience and submission to His holy will. A world which has denied God and His Divine Son, Jesus Christ, can expect to be constantly at war. Our Lord, understanding the ways of the world as no other, said that there would be “wars and rumors of wars” (Mt.24:6).

There is a natural order of things which is willed by God. We once accepted that natural order and lived in a patriarchal society based on the Fatherhood of God and the Christian family, in which the father represents God. But the patriarchal structure of society is now crumbling, and a matriarchal system threatens to take its place, which would disintegrate in disorder and chaos.

Women and men represent God in different ways. A woman cannot well represent the fatherhood and authority of God. Women better represent the love and care of God for His people. Their leadership and sphere of influence should be mostly the spiritual. The most powerful woman in the history of the world was, is, the Blessed Virgin Mary, but she was no feminist, and her power, far greater than any earthly power, is spiritual. Some of the saints, like St. Monica, St. Bridget of Sweden, and St. Margaret of Scotland, had a great spiritual influence on their husbands, and numbered saints among their children.

But under normal circumstances women do not have the gift, the charism, that is necessary to play the role of societal leadership, except in a collaborative situation with men. If they are out of obedience to God’s plan, then they lack the grace to fulfill it. There are exceptions, of course, and God sometimes calls particular women to act or speak for Him, like St. Joan of Arc, or St. Catherine of Siena. But today the rise of aggressive feminism threatens to destroy God’s intended order. It is the devil’s trump card. Think of how he used Eve.

It is not an insult to women to expect them to be obedient to their husbands. A structure of authority and obedience exists for everyone. This is the way that women who are married fulfill their obligation to be obedient to God. Her husband must be obedient too, owing obedience to his employers, to governmental authorities at all levels, as well as to his local pastor, the bishop, the true pope, and ultimately to God. Unmarried women must also be in a state of obedience to God through a human authority structure. Children, of course, must be obedient to their parents and to others whom God has placed over them.

But the whole structure of human society is today under attack. The family is a prime target, so what better way to destroy the traditional family than through the woman. Women’s fashions have reached a point of being highly offensive and indecent, and the children are introduced to this from an early age. In many families today it is very difficult for children, both girls and boys, to learn what is expected of them. Disobedience is not corrected, and the example they need is not given them in matters of dress, language, and general behavior. They are allowed to view programs and videos that are deadly poison for the soul. It is no wonder that girls learn to dress and behave like the latest outrageous incarnation of Madonna or Lady Gaga.

The model many women look to today is not the Blessed Virgin Mary or the saints, and the noble women of history, but the Earth Goddess, and the goddess Diana, with her bow and arrow. In the 70s women were already singing with Helen Reddy, “I am woman! I am invincible!” Today the practice of witchcraft, especially among young girls, is spreading rapidly as a result of the popularity of books and movies like the Harry Potter series.

The rise of feminism affects not only secular society, but the Church as well. Many communities of sisters are in full revolt against Church authority and teaching, even on such matters as abortion, gay rights, and the ordination of women. Many of them, for all intents and purposes, have given up the Catholic Faith and are following the spiritual practices of other religions. We have not seen the end of it.

St. Paul tells us that in the end all things will be subject to God the Father through Jesus Christ:

“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made to live. But each in his own turn, Christ as the first-fruits, then they who are Christ’s, who have believed, at his coming. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when he does away with all sovereignty, authority and power. For he must reign, until ‘he has put all his enemies under his feet.’ And the last enemy to be destroyed will be death, for ‘he has put all things under his feet.’… And when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be made subject to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all” (1Cor.15:22-26;28).

[Thomas A. Droleskey afterword: Thank you, Father Campbell! Isn't time to pray a Rosary now?]

[Here's a bonus for you: A reprise of an article about the Virtue of Modesty that was written by Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.D., for The Remnant in 1972. One of our prayers is that those men who have been ordained to the priesthood during the time of papal vacancy will cease their concessions to the popular culture in order not to "scare" the people or because they cannnot find any "specific" condemnation of a particular style of dress in an ethics manual or papal allocution. We are not Protestants. Not everything about the Faith is written down. We must use the sensus Catholicus to understand what is pleasing to God and what offends Him and is a threat to souls and disruptive of social order. How wonderful it is, therefore, that we can draw upon the wisdom of our older priests who understand that we must indeed abide by truth, not by creatures.]

Appendix

Father Martin Stepanich on the Virtue of Modesty

The Remnant, 1972

 

The avowed enemies of God are rejoicing--temporarily--at having brought about an almost total collapse of the virtue of modesty among once virtuous Christian womanhood, while those commissioned by God to teach and uphold this angelic virtue insist on cowardly silence and indifference about it and on gutless permissiveness in manner of dress everywhere.

Meanwhile, vast numbers of supposedly "good" people remain as if without a conscience, being morally blind and insensitive as to what has really happened to a God-given virtue that was once a distinctive trademark of theirs. This type of blindness seems to go hand in hand with a brazen contempt and a sassy resentfulness towards any attempt to revive and restore the missing sense of modesty.

The fact stands out clearly that the immodest fashions of this unchaste generation still offend Our Lord "very much," as Our Lady foretold it through the angelic little Jacinta.

Anyone who still cares about God's virtue of modesty, which He has made shine with such heavenly beauty in the Immaculate Virgin Mary, cannot forget how Our Lord suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane when He foresaw so many sinners, including the immodest and the impure, remaining unrepentant. And the sight of so many immodest creatures displaying crude flesh, like animals, brings vividly before our mind's eye the frightful vision of Our Divine Savior being mercilessly scourged at the pillar. We need not strain ourselves in trying to picture this scene, for we can plainly see the immodest, with their unchaste displays of flesh and figure, continually scourging Our Lord. And we can see them crowning Him with thorns and nailing Him to the Cross all over again.

And look what sorrow the immodest and the impure are causing their Sorrowful and Immaculate Mother, whom God has presented to them as the Perfect Model of Modesty and Purity!

But it has not all happened by accident. Satan planned it this way. As he has done with such evil movements as Communism and Socialism and Freemasonry, so also has he planned out a program of gradual, not sudden, destruction of the sense of modesty and purity. A mere look at the past 50 years or more shows us very plainly how gradually it was all done, first by apparently innocent abbreviations of garments and by slight revelations of bare flesh and by subtle little displays of the figure, and then, as protests died down, by more and more abbreviations and displays--until the crude immodesty of our day became a shocking reality.

Many living today have seen it all happen before their very eyes. They have lived through it and, if they have managed to retain their God-given moral sense, they find the barbarian immodesty of the this day intolerable and they look upon it as a sin crying to Heaven for the vengeance that must inevitably come if sinners continue to refuse to amend their ways.

Perhaps some 50 years ago or more, a publication known as The Frenchwoman presented the following satanic program for the destruction of the virtue of modesty: "Our children must realize the ideal of nakedness... Thus, the mentality of the child is rapidly transformed. To escape opposition, progress must be methodically graduated: first, feet and legs naked, then upturned sleeves; afterwards, the upper part of the chest; then, the back... n summer, they will go around almost naked."

Even if such a daring statement of the powers of darkness had never come to light--though "enlightened" liberals have tried to keep it in the dark--we would still know that it had to be planned that way and could not have happened by accident. And we would also know that such a program for immodesty could not have originated anywhere but in the dungeons of hell and in the mind of Satan.

The program of gradualism intended to lead eventually to the crude immodesty that we know so painfully well today was evidently drawn up, or at least made known, some time during the Fatima years, possibly a little before or after the 1917 Apparitions of Our Lady. (Maybe some well-informed person can provide a precise date.) Bearing this in mind, we can easily conclude that it was no accident that Our Lady insisted so strongly on modesty in her Fatima Message. She knew well of the evil program that would endanger so many immortal souls, and she came to Fatima to warn souls and to save them from the evil awaiting them.

As Sister Lucy has said, one of the things that Our Lady especially asked for was modesty in dress. And still better known, though disregarded, is Jacinta's prophecy: "Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much"--that little liked prophecy that leaves immodestly dressed "pious" women and girls callous and insensitive and cold.

Just as Our Lady was commissioned by God to oppose the rise of Russian Communism and all the other evils named in the Fatima Message, with God's own program of sanctification and salvation, so was part of her mission to warn souls of the dangers of immodesty and impurity that were to increase the unbelievable proportions in the years to come, and to turn them to modesty and and purity and amendment of life.

In connection with the timeliness of Our Lady's message of modesty in 1917, just when Satan's program of gradual nakedness was being put into effect, we must also mention the timeliness of the message of modesty of Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922). It is fairly well known how dynamic were his two successors, Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, in promoting modesty of dress, but it is not as well known that Pope Benedict XV was before them a strenuous defender and promoter of modesty at a time when we might imagine it was not so much of a problem.

We cannot believe that the statements of Our Lady of Fatima and those of Pope Benedict XV on modesty were disconnected or were merely a matter of coincidence. We can only believe that both Our Lady of Fatima and the Holy Father of that time were inspired and guided by God Himself to speak out on modesty in dress, so as to counteract the wicked program of gradual nudism that was being inspired and guided by hell's father of iniquity.

Let us quote an important statement of Pope Benedict XV--by no means his only one--so that we may see how immodesty in dress had already begun to cause moral ruin among women and girls of his day. In an Encyclical Letter (Sacra Propediem, 1921) commemorating the 7th centenary of the founding of the Franciscan Third Order, Pope Benedict wrote as follows:

 

"From this point of view one cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and condition; made foolish by desire to please, they do not see to what a degree the in decency of their clothing shocks every honest man, and offends God. Most of them would formerly have blushed for those toilettes 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. And We speak not of those exotic and barbarous dances recently imported into fashionable circles, one more shocking than the other; one cannot imagine anything more suitable for banishing all the remains of modesty."

If we did not know that a Pope wrote this in 1921, we would surely think it was written, or should have been written by someone, in 1972!

After thus deploring the immodesty of his day, the Holy Father exhorted women with these words:

 

"In what concerns specially the Tertiary Sisters, We ask of them by their dress and manner of wearing it, to be models of holy modesty for other ladies and young girls; that they be thoroughly convinced that the best way for them to be of use to the Church and to Society is to labor for the improvement of morals."

 

Whose message, do you suppose, have women and girls accepted: the message of modesty of Our Lady of Fatima and of the Holy Father or, the message of immodesty of Lucifer?

Who has recommend to them short skirts, sleeveless dresses, pants, shorts, and clownish pants suits, and so on?

Not only did women and girls buy and buy and buy the clothing that through the years became gradually shorter and skimpier and tighter and ever more unladylike, thus making the whole program of gradual nakedness a huge success, but something else happened at the same time; the sense of modesty and propriety, which God has instilled into their souls, became gradually more blurred and dim and fuzzy, until in so many it became totally blacked out and dead. They did not, and do not, know what happened to them. By blindly and stupidly following the satanic program of gradual abbreviation of attire, they destroyed in themselves a precious God-given gift--the sense of modesty--so that they have now made themselves incapable of distinguishing between modesty and immodesty, nor do so many of them care to know.

And not only have women destroyed in themselves God's gift of modesty, but they have destroyed it in their children from their earliest years, so that a whole generation has been brought up without any real understanding of modesty without any desire to possess its beauty.

And, mind you, these have been "good" and "pious" women who have done this to their children! They have been the "Lord, Lord" type who have duly said their prayers, which all are obliged to do, but who have not done "the Will of My Father Who is in Heaven" (Mt. 7. 21) by obeying His law of modesty. (Emphases added.) (Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.D., The Remnant, 1972.)

[Thomas A. Droleskey afterword: Please continue your prayers for Father Martin Stepanich, who remains hopitalized in the Chicago, Illinois, area, although he is expected to go home soon. We will only discover in eternity the good he has done by his fidelity to the truth, not to creatures, and by the graces his Masses have addeed to the world.]

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints