Hooters shirts at Mass???

When I was at the Swiss L'Abri in the 1970s, Francis A. Schaeffer, Sr., made a point of welcoming everyone to church no matter how they were dressed. The important thing, he stressed, was that the younger generation were hearing the Gospel -- more important than how they were dressed. That was during they heyday of tie-died T-shirts and crazy hair and beards and hemp necklaces and day trippers looking more ripped than Johnny Depp playing Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I wasn't yet a Catholic in those days, so I don't know how young folks of that generation looked appearing in U.S. Masses, although I've heard the horror stories of priests "consecrating" Ginos pizzas or watering potted plants with left over Communion wine.

And now there's this, from Terry Mattingly: "No Hooters shirts in Mass, please" (The News-Herald, August 26, 2011):

Deacon Greg Kandra was well aware that modern Americans were getting more casual and that these laid-back attitudes were filtering into Catholic pews.

Still, was that woman who was approaching the altar to receive Holy Communion really wearing a Hooters shirt?

Yes, she was.

When did Catholics, he thought to himself, start coming to Mass dressed for a Britney Spears concert? Had he missed a memo or something?

I suppose it's one thing to welcome outsiders (non-Christians, non-Catholics, or even lapsed-Catholic) to church no matter how they're dressed, although it would be hard for me to feel as generous-spirited as Schaeffer was. Philistine converts can always be catechized later. But it seems to me another thing completely for regular church-going cradle Catholics who should know better to come to meet their living Savior at Mass and witness His Sacrifice dressed down in tank tops, flip flops, or a Hooters T-shirt. I know these poor souls haven't been catechized for the past half-century, but they really ought to know better. The liturgy itself could be instructive here, you know ...

[Hat tip to J.M.]