Girls in Summer Dresses

The raiment in Spain stays mainly on the plain side; the church sees to it that feminine fashions contribute as little as possible to man's proclivity toward sin. But summertime sports like swimming and tennis present special perils, and in last week's Ecclesia, official organ of Catholic Action in Spain, Bishop Ramon Masnou of Vich warned priests of his diocese to be watchful. Wrote the bishop: "We wish to call special attention to dresses in female sports . . . Modesty must never be sacrificed in sport, nor should sport become a subterfuge for perverse exhibitionism. Bear this in mind when girls are swimming, skating, etc. The latter sport, called artistic and executed in public, we consider absolutely scandalous, rejectable and forbidden if girls do not wear bloomers reaching below their knees . . . Finally, instruct the faithful that nudism in all its forms is the devilish effort of paganism, that the spirit of the Gospel never will be reconciled to the lying, hypocritical stratagems of the world, the devil and the flesh."

In Rome, the Vatican looked with distaste at another kind of fashion problem: the adaptation of a cardinal's dress, complete with chain, pectoral cross and red biretta, as part of the line of Fontana Sisters, topflight Roman couturieres. "The frantic search for novelties," declared an official Vatican spokesman, "has deprived fashion in general, and Italian fashion in particular, of its artistic requirements. This frivolous imitation of a cardinal's attire is simply grotesque."

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