This is what I have collected so far for the book about modesty that I will write (these are quoted by Rita Davidson’s book, “Immodesty Satan’s Virtue”).
Our Lady of Good Success said “. . . that impurity would inundate the streets like filthy ocean waters so that ‘there would be almost no virgin souls’” and “Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. In this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent.” “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time . . .” During one of the apparitions she saw swords above the head of Christ that read, “I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity.”
Ecclesiasticus 19:27: “The attire of the body, laughter of the teeth, and the gait of the man, shew what he is.”
Deuteronomy 22:5: “A woman shall not be clothed with man’s apparel; neither shall a man use woman’s apparel; for he that doeth these things is abominable before God.”
1 Timothy 2:9-10 “In like manner I wish women to be decently dressed, adorning themselves with modesty and dignity, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but with good works, such as become women professing Godliness.”
St. John Chrysostom said in the late 3rd century: “The beauty of women is the greatest snare. Or rather, not the beauty of woman, but unchastened gazing.” “You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress, and by your deportment and much more effectively than you could by your voice. When you have made another sin in his heart, how can you be innocent? Tell me, whom does this world condemn? Whom do judges in court punish? Those who drink poison or those who prepare and administer the fatal potion? You have prepared the abominable cup, you have given the death-dealing drink, and you are more criminal than are those who poison the body, you murder not the body but the soul. And it is not to enemies you do this, nor are you urged on by any imaginary necessity, nor provoked by injury, but out of foolish vanity and pride.”
St. Nilus in the fifth century: “After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable . . . People’s appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair.” St. Nilus also predicted Internet so that prophecy is worth looking up.
St. Thomas Aquinas is quoted in “A Tour of the Summa” quoting St. Ambrose: “that the body should be clad and adorned appropriately, unaffectedly, simply, not in an over-nice fashion, nor with costly or dazzling apparel. Modesty has a place in regulating the attire. In dress, as in all outward things, there is a reasonable and decent norm. Dress should not conflict too gaudily with established custom, provided the custom itself is decent. Nor should dress too largely absorb a person’s interest and attention, for excessive pleasure in dress is vainglory . . . On the other hand . . . slovenliness in dress (or negligence) offends against modesty.”
she also quoted a dream or two of St. Don Bosco’s in the book “Smiling Don Bosco”
Look up immodesty in the Catechism of the Council of Trent (note to myself)
quote from Our Lady of Fatima to 10-year-old Jacinta in 1920: “Fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Divine Lord very much. Those who serve God ought not to follow these fashions. The Church has no fashions. Our Lord is always the same. . . More people go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”
Pope Benedict XV in his encyclical Sacra Propediem in 1921: “One cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and station. Made foolish by a desire to please, they do not see to what degree the indecency of their clothing shocks every honest man and offends God. Most of them would formerly have blushed for such apparel as a grave fault against Christian modesty. Now it does not suffice to exhibit themselves on public thoroughfares; they do not fear to cross the threshold of 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”
in 1926 Father Dolan, Director of the Little Flower Society, visited Liseaux and spoke to St. Therese’s sister Pauline, then Mother Agnes; she said to the ladies of the Society: “that if they would please the Little Flower and win her favor, they must not follow the fashion when fashion demands immodest dress.”
In 1928 the Cardinal Vicar of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Pompili ordered a “Crusade Against Immodest Fashions, Especially in Schools Directed by Religious” and his letter said “that a dress cannot be called decent which is cut deeper than two fingers breadth under the pit of the throat, which does not cover the arms at least to the elbows and scarcely reaches a bit beyond the knees. Furthermore, dresses of transparent materials are improper.”
In 1930 Cardinal Sbaretti in a Letter from the Sacred Congregation of the Council issued by direction of Pope Pius XI to persons in positions of authority: “condemn emphatically the immodest fashion of dress adopted by Catholic women and girls, which fashion not only offends the dignity of women, but conduces to the temporal ruin, miserably dragging down others in their fall. . .