Pope Pius XII on fashion

By Virginia Coda Nunziante   |   21 August 2024

Extracts from the introduction to Christian Fashion in the History of the Church.

Moral tracts and manuals of the Church’s social teaching (which constitutes a branch of her morality) often ignore or neglect the question of Christian fashion, which has important implications both on an individual and social level.

Fashion is expressed, above all, in how we dress. However, it is not only visible clothing, but the totality of invisible elements incorporated with it.¹ According to the Encyclopedia Treccani:

“[O]ur clothing is a way of declaring to ourselves and to others who we are and what we do. Clothes have practical functions: they protect us from cold or heat, they are suited to the type of work we do. The mechanic wears overalls, the cook an apron, soldiers have uniforms. All peoples have a particular way of dressing, which can change over the centuries, but which allows a people to be identified. Finally, in almost all cultures, clothing is also linked to a sense of modesty, a sentiment that is well rooted in man and not easy to explain. The sense of modesty varies in different historical periods, in different cultures, and from person to person.”²

In a speech on 3 November 1957, Pius XII added to the practical and moral functions a third, aesthetic function, which he defines as “adornment”. With great wisdom, Pius XII praised fashion where it becomes an instrument of beauty, fulfilling its purpose of adornment. The young person seeks “attractive and splendid clothing which sing the happy themes of the springtime of life, and which facilitates, in harmony with the rules of modesty, the psychological prerequisites necessary for the formation of new families. At the same time, those of mature age seek appropriate clothing to enhance an aura of dignity, seriousness and serene happiness. In those cases where the aim is to enhance the moral beauty of the person, the style of clothes will be such as almost to eclipse physical beauty in the austere shadow of concealment, in order to distract the attention of the senses, and concentrate reflection on the spirit.”³

The same pope, underlining the beauty of creation, encouraged master tailors to contemplate it, because “if plants and animals, then, are clothed in wonderful colours which attract the eye and admiration, cannot man imitate the Divine Artist in this?”¹¹ Clothing, then, has “its own multiform and efficacious language. At times, it is a spontaneous and faithful interpretation of sentiments and habits … Clothing expresses joy and sorrow, authority and power, pride and simplicity, wealth and poverty, the sacred and the profane.⁴

Today, clothing no longer seems to reflect these criteria: the very function of protection from cold or heat is often sacrificed to the imperatives of fashion, which change the other principles, starting with the sense of shame. It suffices to consider what beaches are like today, as well as the spread of nudism, especially during the summer months, in large western cities. The fashion revolution represents an attack on modesty, and must be seen in the context of a plan to reject beauty, which characterises the decadence of contemporary society. As Carmelo Leotta has noted “fashion only apparently becomes an instrument of beauty, if, in fact, beauty is never separated from the good and the true; the sensual ostentation of one’s body becomes an instrument of disorder and renders love — naturally aimed at the perpetual possession of the true and the good — more difficult.”⁵

The moral law is the criterion for judging fashion, which, by its nature, constantly changes. Fashion, therefore, must comply with the principles of morality, as Pius XII affirmed in a speech to the young women of Catholic Action on 22 May 1941: 

“What God asks of you is to always remember that fashion is not, nor can it be, the supreme rule of your conduct; that above fashion and its requirements, there are higher and more authoritative laws, superior and unchanging principles, which in no case can be sacrificed to the desire of pleasure or whim, and before which the idol of fashion must know how to bend its fleeting omnipotence. These are the principles that St Thomas Aquinas points to for feminine adornment, and recalls when he teaches us what the order of our charity and affections should be; the good of our soul has to come before that of our body, and to the advantage of our own body, we must prefer the good of the soul of our neighbour. Do you not see, then, that there is a limit that no style of fashion can overstep, beyond which, fashion becomes the mother of ruin for one’s own soul and for others?”⁶

In a 1957 address to the Latin Union of Haute Couture, the same pontiff affirmed that, “the so-called relativity of fashions with respect to times, places, persons, and education is not a valid reason to renounce a priori a moral judgment on this or that fashion which, for the time being, violates the limits of normal decency. … Yet, however broad and changeable the relative morals of styles may be, there is always an absolute norm to be kept, after having heard the admonitions of conscience, which warns against approaching danger: style must never be a proximate occasion of sin.”

Pius XII expresses an absolute norm: if a fashion leads others to sin, it is intrinsically evil in itself and must be rejected by every Christian. This is an insurmountable moral limit. Fashion is immoral if it constitutes an occasion of sin for oneself or for others.

The expression “occasion of sin” refers to the possibility of sinning because of a person or thing. According to Catholic morality, the occasions of sin are divided into proximate (near) and remote. An occasion is called “proximate” when it causes serious danger, “remote” when it creates only a slight danger of sinning. “Proximate” is, therefore, the occasion that makes sin probable, even if it is not necessarily committed.⁷

Catholics have a grave obligation to flee occasions of sin. He who, without sufficient reason, does not flee the occasion of sin, by this very fact, commits a sin of the same kind that he places himself in danger of committing. This is why the popes have always warned against immoral fashions.

The judgments of Catholic morality on fashion are often dismissed as too rigid and overbearing, whilst every exaggeration and extravagance on the part of fashion is accepted without criticism.

The popes of the twentieth century often intervened to remind the faithful not to be carried away by fashions which are immodest and unsuitable for a Catholic. Benedict XV (1914–1922), for example, deplored “the blindness of so many women, of every age and condition, who — made foolish by the desire to please — do not see to what degree they offend every honest man and offend God by the indecency of their clothing. Most of them would formerly have blushed at such ways of dressing as at a grave fault against Christian modesty. Now it does not suffice for them to exhibit them on the public thoroughfares; they do not even fear to cross the threshold of the churches, to assist at the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seductive food of shameful passions to the eucharistic table where one receives the heavenly Author of purity.”⁸

Pius XI (1922–1939) spoke several times on the subject, both directly and through the Congregation of the Council, stating that, “Very often, when occasion arose, the same Supreme Pontiff emphatically condemned immodest fashion, adopted by Catholic women and girls, which not only offends the dignity of woman by defiling her adornment, but conduces to the temporal — and, still worse, to the eternal — ruin of women and girls, miserably dragging down others in their fall.”⁹

Addressing teaching sisters, Pius XI further stated: “Christian modesty of dress must be taught with insistence and ‘at all costs’. And We wish the example to come from Catholic religious houses of education.”¹⁰

Pius XII, in turn, admonished the young women of Catholic Action with these words: 

“It is not Our intention to trace out here the sad and all-too-well-known picture of the disorders which show themselves before your eyes, such as scanty clothes, (which seem to be made to reveal what they should instead veil) sports and exhibitions of ‘camaraderie’ in clothing that is irreconcilable with even the most permissive modesty; dances, shows, auditions, readings, illustrations, decorations in which the mania for fun and pleasure piles up the most serious dangers. Instead, We now intend to remind you and place again before your mind’s eye the principles of the Christian faith which, in these matters, must enlighten your judgments, guide your steps and your conduct, and inspire and support your spiritual struggle.”¹⁰

These pronouncements constitute the doctrinal foundations of a moral revival which, starting from fashion, could extend to the whole of society. In fact, through our clothing we express a world vision — and, if it is true that examples count as much as ideas, it is also in the way we dress that we will be able to express our “lived Christianity”.

Christian Fashion in the History of the Church is available to buy on the Voice of the Family website.

Notes

1. Yuniya Kawamura, La Moda (Il Mulino, Bologna, 2018) p 12.
2. Guido Fauro, article “Abbigliamento”, Enciclopedia dei ragazzi (Treccani, Roma, 2005).
3. Pius XII, Address to the Participants of the First International Congress of Haute Couture, 8 November 1957.
4. Ibid.
5. Carmelo Leotta, «La via pulchritudinis»: La bellezza nella moda e nei costumi. La Quarta Rivoluzione
6. Pius XII, Address to the Young Women of Catholic Action, 22 May 1941.
7. Cardinals Pietro Palazzini and Francesco Roberti, Dizionario di Teologia Morale (Studium, Rome, 1961) p 1006.
8. Benedict XV, Encyclical Sacra Propediem, 6 January 1921.
9. Pius XI, Address to the International Union of Leagues of Catholic Women, 28 October 1925.
10. Pius XII, Address to the Young Women of Catholic Action, cit.