Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 464 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 464 - Part II. What good is shame?

(Youcat answer - repeated) Shame safeguards a person’s intimate space: his mystery, his most personal and inmost being, his dignity, but especially his capacity for love and sexual self-giving. It relates also to that which only love may see.

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2523) There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Many young Christians live in an environment where it is taken for granted that everything should be on display and people are systematically trained to ignore feelings of shame. But shamelessness is inhuman. Animals experience no shame. In a human being, in contrast, it is an essential feature. It does not hide something inferior but rather protects something valuable, namely, the dignity of the person in his capacity to love. The feeling of shame is found in all cultures, although it assumes different forms. It has nothing to do with prudery or a repressive upbringing. A person is also ashamed of his sins and other things that would demean him if they were made generally known. Someone who offends another person’s natural feeling of shame by words, glances, gestures, or actions robs him of his dignity.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2524) The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person. (CCC 2533) Purity of heart requires the modesty which is patience, decency, and discretion. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person.     

(The next question is:  What attitude should a Christian take toward other people’s property?)