A Renaissance of Chapel Veils

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I’ve seen some women wear these at RC Masses, but as I don’t have any “Eastern” heritage, for me to wear that would feel like a cultural appropriation or a costume, not like something connecting me to my grands and great grands. The lace veil or lace doily is more what my grandma and great-grandma would have worn; anything before that would have likely resembled a shawl over the head.

Additionally, in my hometown, the head covering you pictured is associated with Muslims, as in we have Muslim girls and women who live there and go around in those type coverings, so it could very well cause some confusion. I have nothing against Muslims, but I don’t want to be giving the impression that I am one.
 
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Additionally, in my hometown, the head covering you pictured is associated with Muslims, as in we have Muslim girls and women who live there and go around in those type coverings, so it could very well cause some confusion. I have nothing against Muslims, but I don’t want to be giving the impression that I am one.
Similar here in germany, if I would walk along the street with a scarf around my head everyone would think I was muslim as I do look like the half persian I am. But no women at my parish would walk covered, most cover right in front of the church if it´s not the deepest winter.
 
Same where I live. The head covering he pictured is associated with Muslims, not Catholics. I have good friends who are Muslim, but like some other posters, I don’t want to be taken for one myself, and I am dark, being half Brazilian.
 
It depends. I would think “orthodox” at the first sight, but many people just don´t know there are more christian denominations than , ahem, lapsed catholic/protestant (sad, sad secular state here). But I know many eastern catholic women who wear scarves like this as well. I wouldn´t wear it on street because sadly people went very racist and even cruel here in germany. It´s danerous in some areas.
 
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It depends. I would think “orthodox” at the first sight, but many people just don´t know there are more christian denominations than , ahem, lapsed catholic/protestant (sad, sad secular state here). But I know many eastern catholic women who wear scarves like this as well. I wouldn´t wear it on street because sadly people went very racist and even cruel here in germany. It´s danerous in some areas.
I lived in Zuerich for ten years, well based there, and it wasn’t really racist there, but anyone who walked about like that was taken for a Muslim. I think the Roman Catholics would think a Muslim was visiting their church. We see everything in Switzerland, though, even people in traditional African dress. Here in Los Angeles, it’s more Latina, Filipina, and Korean.
 
These “veiling” conversations are always puzzling to me. If it’s not a requirement of attending Liturgy, then let each woman follow her own heart and conscience. I see some women at Liturgy wearing either a veil or scarf. I neither look at them as though they are more pious than anyone else, nor that they are just trying to appear more pious. It’s their choice, and not really my concern. I am more concerned with focusing on the Liturgy. It’s really hard to focus on the Liturgy if you’re taking the inventory of those around you.
 
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These “veiling” conversations are always puzzling to me. If it’s not a requirement of attending Liturgy, then let each woman follow her own heart and conscience. I see some women at Liturgy wearing either a veil or scarf. I neither look at them as though they are more pious than anyone else, nor that they are just trying to appear more pious. It’s their choice, and not really my concern. I am more concerned with focusing on the Liturgy. It’s really hard to focus on the Liturgy if you’re taking the inventory of those around you.
I don’t think the disagreement is over whether or not women should be allowed to wear something covering their head. Most of us agree they should be, and most of us don’t judge them.

Where posters have a disagreement is whether or not wearing a head covering shows more respect and honor to God than not wearing one. I say it doesn’t matter whether one covers the head or not. Others feel it does. Like you, I think women should do what they feel is right for them, within the bounds of what is appropriate, of course.

That’s the disagreement as I see it. Others may see it differently.
 
I noticed a change in the last years.I was deeply shocked when I left the public bath last winter and wrapped my wet hair in a scarf an got heavily harassed by strangers on the street. This was different 10 years ao. No, as we moved to eastern germany with a lower percentage of foreiners, the situation is worse. But this is another theme and makes me very sad.
Interestinly, african dresses are mainly present in the evangelical churches here, the catholic parishes are mainly full of (or empty, sarcasm off) older german ladies in semi-formal, simple clothes without head coverings.
 
Interestinly, african dresses are mainly present in the evangelical churches here, the catholic parishes are mainly full of (or empty, sarcasm off) older german ladies in semi-formal, simple clothes without head coverings.
That’s the way it was in German Switzerland. Of course, I was very close to Germany, in Zuerich. Went to Germany often on business - mostly Berlin, sometimes Munich.
 
And I would say it’s certainly a Roman Catholic custom
One cannot blithely say this was a “custom” always and everywhere across all parts of the Catholic Church. It certainly was, and largely still is, a custom of the Jews and the Middle East from which Christianity sprang.
It was mandated in Canon Law until 1983.
Lets unpack that short statement.
First up universal Canon Law only really began in 1917 so you are only talking about a period of 66 years for a start.

And even here you are mistaken.
What was “mandated” was continued observance of prevailing customs. So it was admitted that there would be exceptions and a universal obligation could and should not be imposed.
It was mandated in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Canon 1262 states:
2.Men, in a church or outside a church, while they are assisting at sacred rites, shall be bare-headed, unless the approved mores of the people or peculiar circumstances of things determine otherwise; women, however, shall have a covered head and be modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord.
And if you were correct then the related custom of separating menfolk from womenfolk should also be in force in that time - which also clearly wasn’t in many countries. Most people on CAF would be amazed to learn that the sexes used to be separated in Church in times past.
  1. It is desirable that, consistent with ancient discipline, women be separated from men in church.
I remember my old Catholic Church in a small Scottish town had wide pews with aisles on the side not down the middle. You can still see the one inch holes drilled in the middle of each pew from front to back where once a pole went down the length of the church to keep families together but separated by sex.

But all these desirable promptings of celibate canon lawyers fell on deaf ears and were only minor matters anyways. By 1973 these practises had eroded to the point that “Inter InSigniores” affirmed:
It must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor. 11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value.
 
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remember my old Catholic Church in a small Scottish town had wide pews with aisles on the side not down the middle. You can still see the one inch holes drilled in the middle of each pew from front to back where once a pole went down the length of the church to keep families together but separated by sex.
dons suit of armor

I wouldn’t mind reviving that custom either. It would eliminate the potential to cause others to lust, and it would also eliminate the temptation to get all dressed up in a way to attract the opposite sex.
 
To be honest I find it quaint and wouldn’t have a problem with it.
 
dons suit of armor

I wouldn’t mind reviving that custom either.
OMGosh LOL

I can see it now: the tiny Scottish church with a pole down the middle, men in full armor on one side (spears too? Swords? Plumes on helmets? Smelling of horses and stale sweat, and clanking whenever they walked?) and on the other side, a sea of lace bobbing like an ocean.

That would be totally reverent and appropriate for Mass… Not!! Bahahahaha! 😆😆😆

You must love Renaissance festivals. I sure do. There’s nothing like a man in a suit of armor. Except, of course, a man in a suit of armor on a warhorse charging hell-for-leather at another man in a suit of armor on a warhorse, both with lances in the cradle. Aaaahhhh!!! 😍😍😍
 
I see some women at Liturgy wearing either a veil or scarf. I neither look at them as though they are more pious than anyone else, nor that they are just trying to appear more pious. It’s their choice, and not really my concern. I am more concerned with focusing on the Liturgy. It’s really hard to focus on the Liturgy if you’re taking the inventory of those around you.
Yeah, honestly, nobody notices. I don’t know where women get the idea that everybody is looking at them if they have a veil on. When I go to church there are usually a couple women with veils and nobody takes any notice at all, especially since in certain parts of these cities there are elderly women and immigrant women who have always worn them, even before now. If anyone notices at all, they just think it’s an ethnic thing.
 
The daughter looks ready for a wedding with Lucifer while Mrs Trump a funeral. Given Pope Francis is neither an Italian natio al nor at Mass with them does it matter before God? I am sure Pope Francis doesnt care at all having no time for the pomp and circumstantial protocols of the Vatican apparatchik.
 
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I wouldn’t mind reviving that custom either.
I can’t say I’d be inclined to bring it back but here is what St. John Chrysostom had to say about it,

"What are you doing, O man? Are you being overly attentive concerning the women’s beauty, and you do not shudder at thus outraging the temple of God? Does the church seem to you to be a brothel, and less honorable than the marketplace? … It would be better for such men to be blind, for it is better for it is better to be diseased than to use the eyes for such purposes.

It would be best if you had within yourself the wall to part you from the women. But since you do not desire this to be so, our fathers thought it necessary by these boards to wall you off. I hear from the elders that in the early times there was nothing like these partitions, “for in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female” [Galatians 3:28]. And in the Apostle Paul’s time also both men and women were together, because the men were truly men, and the women were truly women. But now it is altogether to the contrary: the women have urged themselves into the manners of courtesans, and the men are in no better state than frenzied horses."
 
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Everyone in that picture looks very uncomfortable.
I think the Trump family always looks uncomfortable, but in the photo, they look especially uncomfortable. I agree with @BlackFriar that dressing in black and in veils is not something God cares about, nor is it something Pope Francis cares about. If it makes a woman feel more comfortable in church, I don’t think it does any harm, but it’s not an indication of her piety. Daily actions that reflect Christ speak far louder than chapel veils.
 
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