Modesty in Canada

THE STAR PHOENIX (Saskatoon), Sept. 22 — At Strathcona Composite High School in Edmonton, Alberta, students are expected to cover their flesh, thanks to a new dress code instituted by principal Rosalind Smith.

The code forbids boys from wearing muscle shirts and baggy, slide-down-the-rear-end pants favored by hip-hop singers. Girls are banned from wearing revealing tops and spaghetti straps, Saskatoon's Star Phoenix reported.

In the first week of the new dress code, some students rebelled, wearing even more outrageous clothes, the paper reported, but things have settled down since then.

Strathcona student Deanna Thomas, 16, stood up for the new code.

“There are a lot of girls who dress inappropriately, who have their thongs sticking out of their pants and they have to walk up the stairs holding up their pants,” she said.

A nearby junior high, Father Michael Troy School, recently became the first Catholic school in the province to impose such a dress code.

“The kids come from very different backgrounds, from those quite wealthy to those quite needy,” said principal Helen Matsuba. “This will be an equalizer among the kids and they won't be judged by what they are wearing.”

Anti-Defamation League Spreading Poison?

CATHOLIC LEAGUE, Sept. 18 — The flap continues against Mel Gibson's still-unfinished film version of the Gospel account of Jesus' death, The Passion, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights reported.

The group noted that in the Sept. 18 Jewish Week, Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman accused Gibson of being anti-Semitic for criticizing the Anti-Defamation League's campaign against him and his film, and for Gibson's statement that “modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church.”

Foxman called this statement “classic anti-Semitism.”

Catholic League president William Donohue criticized Foxman for “seeking to poison relations between Catholics and Jews.”

Donahue noted: “It is no secret that extremely secular Jews have teamed up with profoundly alienated Catholics to blame the Catholic Church for the Holocaust. Quite frankly, most Catholics are fed up with the lies.”

Priests Vote to Create Lobby Group

MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, Sept. 18 — Priests from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee voted Sept. 18 to create an alliance independent of the Church hierarchy that would serve as a “support network and an independent voice,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The paper reported that specifics of the priests' alliance structure and intentions had not yet been decided. However, the very existence of the group would make Milwaukee one of only a few dioceses in the United States with such an organization.

Father Kenneth Mich, one of 14 organizers, invited more than 400 diocesan priests to attend a “sharing session” conducted by a “professional facilitator,” the paper reported.

Some 80 priests showed up and voted to form the new group.

Father Mich said some issues the group would address included priest shortages, proposals for optional celibacy and religious instruction for public-school children.