What Are Your Thoughts On Dressing Modestly In the Church?

Hi, I’m wondering if you might be referring to an article I read recently, where a priest publicly addressed women, during a service, to “please help to protect the purity of men at holy Mass by choosing to dress modestly”.

First of all, understand that I’m not Catholic. However, in the priest’s defense, the Apostle Paul did command the same thing among believers in 1 Timothy 2:9-10: “They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes.” (notice this part): “For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do” (New Living Translation). So according to Paul (and the Bible as a whole), believing women should make themselves attractive by their religion (the things they do in response to their relationships with Jesus), not by their clothes (or lack of). It’s also respectful, for otherwise, it could take others’ focus off God and onto you.

Now, we do live in a time where people would respond to this and say it’s not their fault, but others’ if they see themselves that way. This is true, but Paul also said (in response to eating food sacrificed to idols) that we shouldn’t do anything that could cause a new believer to stumble in their faith. Jesus also mentioned that if anybody should cause (or teach) another believer to sin, or encourage them to, then that person would be better off it they’d never been born. So if the priest noticed that there’s a problem of people looking at you because you’re wearing sexy clothes to church, then for your own sake, as well as those who have a staring problem, it would be best to cover up so as to not promote (or even unintentionally cause) others to sin.

Granted, this obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, for some don’t have any other clothes to wear (if a prostitute wants to come to church, you don’t turn her away because she’s wearing her work clothes; a homeless person only has what’s on their back; etc.) and notice that Paul was specifically addressing believers, not just anybody who walks into worship. On that note, there are occasionally women who will intentionally wear revealing clothes to church, and the priest may have been addressing such people as them. For though church could be a good place to meet a future spouse, it’s not meant to be a dating service, but a place of prayer and group worship.

Some of the comments suggested the issue was the men’s and how they treat women as sex objects — these people are not wrong, the church SHOULD address that, also (as Paul addressed it throughout parts of his letters). But overall, everybody needs to take part in preventing the occurrence of sin within the hearts of other believers, and maybe, instead of publicly calling women out on this, the priest should have included it in a series of holiness among believers, self worth in Christ, or a walk through 1 Corinthians. Either way, it could’ve been better a-“dressed”.