the University Concourse
Volume IV, Issue 6
April 12, 1999
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This piece is part of a larger section called 'Questions, comments and continuing conversations'.
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Another thought on modesty

Dr. Crosby sent me the following friendly note via e-mail. Thinking the readers might benefit from it as I had, I asked for and received his permission to publish it. KvS.

I liked your response to Regina very much. The point about the danger of a judgmental spirit is very well taken. The one point on which I might more incline to her position is on the volatile, incendiary character of fallen male sexuality. I think John Paul is right when in Love and Responsibility he says that women often have difficulty acknowledging a sexual makeup so different from their own and thus often unwittingly stir up male concupiscence. But you are right that womanly modesty should not be only a matter of avoiding male sin. I was just studying with my students the chapter in Love and Responsibility on sexual shame and was struck by this anti-puritanical remark: sexual shame has the tendency to conceal sexual values "but to conceal them only to a certain extent, so that in combination with the value of the person they can still be a point of origin for love."

John F. Crosby

Dr. Crosby is chairman of the philosophy department at FUS.

Related Articles:
• Modesty and beauty - the lost connection, Regina Schmiedicke (IV,4)
• A different perspective on the modesty question, Kathleen van Schaijik (IV,5)
  • Another thought on modesty, John F. Crosby (IV,6)
• Noticing the attractiveness of modesty among FUS women, Justine Schmiesing (IV,6)

By the same author:
• Shouldn't we have a real core curriculum at Franciscan University?, (I,1)
• Chairman addresses the question of Thomism in Franciscan University's philosophy department, (I,6)
• Finding common ground between Thomists and non-Thomists in Catholic philosophy, (I,7)
• In reply to Mark Fischer's defense of the present core curriculum, (II,1)
• Last words on the core, (II,3)
• Franciscan University and distance education: Some doubts, (III,2)
• Doubts about DE that won't go away: Response to Dr. Miletic, (III,3)
• Oral traditions and distance education, (III,4)
• John Paul II to Franciscan University:, (IV,1)
  • Another thought on modesty, (IV,6)
• Beware laxism, (VIII,1)

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© The University Concourse, April 12, 1999