During their January-February meeting in 1968, the same meeting during which what was then the "Catholic Welfare Organization" (CWO) became the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the Philippine hierarchy promulgated a "Profession of Christian Purity", which it strongly recommended to the faithful. The following text of the Profession can be found in the March 1968 issue of Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas.
At a time when sexual permissiveness was becoming widespread, the statement represented a counter-blow, a rear-guard action of the hierarchy. What is remarkable about its statement is its strong affirmation -- begun with the words, "I believe" -- that immodesty in female fashion can, in fact, lead men into sin: a statement that would be incendiary and politically incorrect to the highest degree in Filipino society today. Perhaps for that reason, this document has been quickly buried in the collective amnesia of the Catholic Church in the Philippines about much of its past.
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