We trust and believe, therefore, that your undertaking will meet with the happiest success. As a presage of which, and a pledge of our paternal good will, with the tenderest affection, we impart to you our apostolic benediction.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the eighth day of July, 1868, in the twenty-third year of our pontificate.
Pius IX. Pope.
On occasions rendered doubly solemn by their infrequency, the common father of the faithful raises his voice to warn the entire world either against abuses which threaten society, or against those perverse doctrines which would attempt the annihilation of the kingdom of truth. These sacred words, coming from the lips of him to whom Jesus Christ has entrusted the care of his church, are always received by the whole of the immense Catholic family with that respect and submission which are due to a father.
A few months ago, Pius IX. suggested the establishment of a society of ladies who by their example and influence might succeed in moderating that extravagance which is the ruin of families, and one of the principal causes of immorality. "In order to accomplish this most difficult undertaking," adds his Holiness, "we must remind women that if in every place it is unbecoming modesty to endeavor to attract attention by extravagance and strangeness of dress, in the sacred church where God dwells and sits upon a throne of mercy to receive the prayers and adorations of the faithful, it is a true insult to him in whose eyes pride, pomp, and the desire of pleasing men are hateful."
These words of the Holy See, we may rest assured, are more applicable to us women of France than to the ladies of the Roman nobility, who are more grave, more pious, and more reserved, whatever may be said to the contrary, than the women of our land.
When travelling through England, Germany, or Russia, have we not sometimes felt a foolish pride on seeing that everywhere the most elegant robes and head-dresses were styled "modes de Paris." It is true that whatever in dress is new or elegant is imported from the capital of France, or is made after our Paris fashions. But we have no reason to be proud of this frivolous and dangerous supremacy; for if it is universally said that the French woman is truly elegant in matters of dress, we should, for that reason, feel under obligation to undertake the reform of an abuse which we aid if we do not originate.
Already, for several years, not only has the Catholic pulpit spoken with serious severity against the extravagance of our sex, but even the government has been aroused by these abuses which are every day producing the most evil results; and we have not forgotten the severe words of President Dupin to the Senate in June, 1865. To-day, things have assumed a still graver aspect, for the Holy Father has called our attention to this deplorable abuse.
The time, then, has come to undertake a crusade, as it were, against an enemy whom we shall not have to cross the seas to seek, because he has cunningly penetrated to our firesides, there to sit beside us and to disturb and destroy the peace of the family.