MODERN FASHIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19978, 21 December 1926, Page 9

MODERN FASHIONS

CONDEMNED BY THE POPE. VIGOROUS CAMPAIGN URGED, (Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, December 19. The Rome correspondent of the Daily Dispatch says:—“A world-wide appeal to men’s Roman Catholic organisations in favour of a vigorous crusade in the interests of humanity against modern women’s immoral fashions and irreverent manners was made by the Pope at a great gathering of men. His Holiness added that the human body was sacred because it was God’s creation, and, therefore, it should defend itself against the spirit of irreverence found in the present fashions, which bore the seed of countless catastrophes. PARIS, December 19. The Bishop of Bordeaux has ordered little girls to cover their knees, while women’s skirts must be long enough to prevent any accusations of immodesty. He has forbidden priests (a administer the communion to those disobeying his orders. —Sydney Sun Cable. DIGNITY OF THE BODY. LONDON, December 19. (Received Dec. 20, at 9 p.m.) The Pope’s formal condemnation of women’s fashions will be taken up by the heads of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. Coincident with his declaration- that Roman Catholic men should help in a crusade against the immoral fashions and irreverent manners of modern women, the Pope further declared : “All who have a sense of the nobility and dignity of the human body should do all they can to prevent the spread of an ugly and irreligious tendency which can be nothing else than a catastrophe,”—A. and N.Z. Cable. A FORLORN CRUSADE. OPPOSED TO INHERENT TRAITS. LONDON, December 20. (Received Dec. 20, at 9 p.m.) The Daily News says: “The Pope is suffering from a delusion if he anticipates permanent and substantial results from his pronouncement regarding women’s, dress. Dictators like Signor Mussolini, who mainly endeavoured to standardise the dress of the colourful Italians, and General Pangalos, who sought to adjust the length of modern Grecian frocks, both failed. Kemal Pasha’s decree abolishing the veil was obeyed only because it suited the taste of Turkish women in the first fiercely joyous pangs of sex emancipation. There is nothing irreverent or immodest in the present wholesome healthy feminine modes, which, according to medical testimony, more truly preserve the sacredness of the human body than ever since fashions began. The Pope might more usefully have appealed to women to correct the hygienic defects and deplorable dullness of modern male attire.” —Sydney Sun Cable.