Theology Of The Body- Traditional Catholic Style

An SSPX Priest has Way Too Many Pints With Aquinas

Recently, Fr. Louis Pieronne, SSPX, gave a two-part sermon.   "The specific theme is beauty and modesty."  Or so they say.  For starters, and incredibly, Father does not give one quote from scripture.  Next, he does not mention Our Lady, let alone Our Lady of Fatima, except once in passing when describing "Catholic Art".  Rather, he is going to develop an obtuse- and absurd- philosophy, trying to distinguish between woman as beautiful and woman as seducer.  In the process, his thought runs aground on the rocks of naturalism.
He begins by saying: "The feminine body is a work of God, a marvel whose great dignity is to be the temple of life."  Many pagans have said the same thing, and this awe of the body is the basis for many of their sordid rituals.  While we Christians do realize that the material creation of God is fundamentally good, and will be completely restored following the General Judgment, we also realize that it has been profoundly wounded by the Original Sin- witness the mournful howls of the coyote and the sad cooing of the morning dove.  Witness the rot and decay in the forest, the stinking scum of a swamp, and so many other scars of destruction and upheaval.  All creation groans, as St Paul said.
Man himself has been mortally wounded with not only the concupiscence of the flesh, but the concupiscence of the eyes as well. Father seems to forget this in his postulates.  He first asks the questions: "Why then do we ask woman for modesty?  If this body is good, why would she hide it?  Why give her the false impression of being a source of corruption, accusing her of tainting others?"  First off, that women can be a source of corruption is not a false impression, but a sad reality in this world of sorrows, this valley of tears, as we lament in the Salve Regina.  But Father seems to have forgotten that.  Instead, he states: "The world was already beautiful, but its beauty was entirely material and impersonal.  Henceforth, beauty is contemplated in a person, and that beauty is a mix of material and spiritual, a delightful blend of qualities of body and heart which we call femininity.  Adam’s marveling before Eve shows how necessary that beauty was, as well as its power over the heart of man to complete him and elevate him."

This is utter speculation.  For the record, this Wolf thinks that man and the animals, before the Fall, were entirely spiritual and elevated.  Even St Thomas Aquinas doubts that the so-called "vegetative processes" existed.  No digestion, composting, or death of any sort existed before the Fall.  Man and the Animals got nourishment merely by contemplating the fruits of the earth.  And before the Fall, Adam and Eve were clothed in grace.   At any rate, since we can scarcely imagine what the world was like before the fall, where death was naught, to build a foundation based on such speculation, that will govern morality, is a delicate endeavor at best.

Father next goes on to postulate what he calls "instinct", wherein this Wolf assumes he is speaking of the desire for the marital embrace. (First, a word on “instinct” as formulated by St Thomas Aquinas. This Wolf does not adhere to any such notion. Rather, man and the animals, to varying degrees, are endowed with reason and the recognition of ontology. As proof of this, a dog raised by cats and around cats will behave like a cat. Contra St Thomas, animals obviously do not have a “software package” that governs their actions, which he calls “instinct”, as opposed to reason.) "Adam would have had to resolve to transmit life, in consideration of God’s commandment [to be fruitful and multiply], and desire would have followed on that choice of his reason."  Again, pure speculation.  The priest goes on to speculate that: "Immediately after the Fall, however, the two saw that they were naked – that is, Eve felt weighing on her that gaze of disordered concupiscence."  Father seems to have forgotten that  ALL concupiscence is disordered, a turning from God to creatures, and a wounding of the heart.
At any rate, Father uses all the aforementioned speculation to arrive at his conclusion: "And he [Adam, after God made them clothes] realized that this modest garment hid the body sufficiently for instinct not to be awakened, but left room for the elegance and beauty which he so needed."  (So much for the hermits and the desert ascetics.)

And so we have the basis for Fr Pieronne's problematic theology: "Clothing allows woman to carry out her duty of beauty for wounded man and become once again the reflection of divine beauty.  Yes, beauty remains a natural mission of woman, inscribed in the depths of her being, and ever since original sin this beauty must be redemptive."  This "duty" is nowhere mentioned in Sacred Scripture, being entirely expostulated from the above discussion, and will permeate the rest of the discourse.  Meanwhile, what does Sacred Scripture have to say?
"I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin,"  says the Holy Man Job.  (Apparently, he did not seem to recognize that he needed to contemplate the physical beauty of a woman, albeit "modestly" clothed. - Father has yet to give us a truly working definition of what precisely constitutes modesty.)
Father also seems to have forgotten these words of the Angel Gabriel to Tobias: "Hear me, and I will show thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail.  For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.  But thou when thou shalt take her, go into the chamber, and for three days keep thyself continent from her, and give thyself to nothing else but to prayers with her.  And on that night lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away.   But the second night thou shalt be admitted into the society of the holy Patriarchs."
One can cite many passages from Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers where God abhors the movements of the flesh and demonstrates how man is hopelessly mired in the filth of sin, reflected in the baseness of his flesh- both men and women.  
And finally, we have the most emphatic testimony of Our Lady Jesus Christ: "And if thy hand, or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire.   And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee having one eye to enter into life, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire."  In other words, we must do massive violence to ourselves in order to be worthy of the lot of the saints.  For the chaste, unmarried man, this means NEVER contemplating woman in any manner whatsoever, as per the constant teaching of the saints and Sacred Tradition.
Father concludes part one thusly: "When God drew Eve from Adam’s side, He said, ‘Let Us make unto him a helpmate like himself.’ Help us to honor you as you deserve!  Be for us redemptrix, and not temptress!  The beauty of your modesty will be the path of salvation for us.”  But he leaves limpid and obscure exactly the means by which women are to accomplish this.
Our Lady of Fatima told little St Jacinta that "certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Lord very much".  St Jacinta repeated this in her exhortations, and consoled that "we ought not to follow these fashions."  Therefore, on a practical note, this Wolf heartily counsels women to look at how the Catholic women in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Eastern Europe dressed in the late 19th Century, and imitate those fashions.  This Wolf very highly doubts that any woman is in Hell because she dressed "like the Amish".  Sure, one will be subject to ridicule, even in so-called "Traditional" parishes, and, tragically, perhaps even by the priest.  But this only serves to magnify to what degree we have been given over to the vainglorious spirit of the New Sodom.
In part two of his discourse, Father will recapitulate what he has already stated.  He notes that: "We have said that beauty belongs to woman as her privilege."  This Wolf would dispute that.  True and enervating beauty is beauty of soul, of virtue, of endowment, and of mission, and this belongs to all of God's creatures, even dogs in their proper place.  This constant harping on the "mission" of woman with respect to her beauty is nowhere found in either Sacred Scripture or Tradition.   (Which perhaps accounts for the notable complete lack of quotes.)
Toward the end of art Two, Father Pieronne recapitulates his whole thesis: "A religious sister does not seek ugliness; she renounces her radiance because her consecration places her continually in the presence of God, and therefore hidden before Him. She bears witness to the presence of that invisible beauty which conquered her heart by making herself in a way invisible, transparent, perpetually veiled. For other women, that beauty ought to be unveiled on leaving the house of God: the Ite missa est is a return to her mission in the world. When a Christian woman leaves the church where her God is enthroned, she is no longer in the sanctuary, but the sanctuary is in her. She is once again the ambassadress of the beauty which dwells in her and which it is her mission to express."
Huh?  In what manner is the beauty of the married woman "unveiled" to the world as opposed to her husband?  Why is the married or single woman fundamentally different from a religious sister in her modesty and comportment?  Should not the non-religious woman rather seek to imitate the religious woman as a model and example?  Should not her clothing imitate the religious habit? (And here this Wolf is referring to the old-style habits of nuns, before the "reforms" of Pius XII's Encyclical Sponsa Christi.  You know, those habits with the stiff starched coiffs, the flattops, the wings, the exaggerated cuffs, and etc.)
Sorry, Fr Louis Pieronne, what we have here is not a good sermon on modesty, but a word salad a la JP2's "theology of the body" with no clear cut guidelines of a practical nature for poor women.  Meanwhile, you should note that women ought to dress so as not to offend the least common denominator- those men who are very easily aroused, for whatever reason.

The Bottom Line here is this Wolf thinks that the patrons of the SSPX had better pray for a good leader who has the spirit of St Benedict and St Bernard, a leader who will whip this sorry lot of priests into something resembling Traditional Catholicism.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.  You are our only hope!