Also Bavaria, oddly.
In England priests who observed the Sarum Use (an English form of the Roman Rite) sometimes used blue for Advent in pre-Reformation days (and maybe for some time after, I don’t know). Of course such liturgical colors were not as standardized and universally observed in those days. Many poor parish priests from what I’ve read had only one set of vestments and wore it for every mass regardless of its color.
In the nineteenth century the Anglicans got interested in Medieval liturgy and revived the blue for Advent tradition. From there it’s spread to some other denominations, like the United Methodist Church in which I was raised.
But from a Catholic perspective the custom went extinct. For centuries blue vestments have been used in some countries for Marian feast days and not at all in other countries. If the Catholic bishops of England or its [former] colonies want to revive the tradition I would support that, though from a modern global perspective it may be confusing to have the same color symbolize different things depending on where you are.
I myself have a great deal of English ancestry, personally like the idea of rediscovering a Medieval English tradition, and in any case was raised with blue as the dominant liturgical color for Advent in my Methodist community. Therefore I personally would be quite comfortable with it as far as my own tastes go, provided it was a darker shade of blue not the feminine light blue we often see in Marian vestments. But it is a fact that in the United States most Catholics are not so English, and many have roots in Latin America or other regions with the Marian blue tradition. Therefore it would probably be a pastoral mistake here. And in any case the controversy over it and lack of episcopal approval makes me think individual parishes should not take it upon themselves to revive the tradition.
