Here, I don’t worry about it. I wear a pashmina. The one time I wore a cap, I was actually asked to remove it by the usher.
I’m actually a bit uncomfortable with the term veiling. Perhaps, that is because I am older and wearing a head covering of some type for Mass, or even entering a church was expected. It was not called “veiling.” When I think of a veil, I think of a wedding veil, or a hat with veiling that covers the eyes. That being said, I understand the modern day use of the term as simply wearing a head covering.
Just make sure its for the right motives.
Which is why Mennonite and Amish women always wear a cap or hat.
I am not married nor in a steady relationship at this time. The men in my family do not pay attention to what I wear on my head in church as not all of them attend Mass on a regular basis, and those that do go to Mass may not go to the same church and times I do.
It has nothing to do with how sinful we are. It has to do with the fact that it says that in the Bible it says that womens should wear a head covering in the Prescence of the Lord (meaning His Prescence in the Eucharist,) women should wear a head covering. It also says that men should not cover their heads. It says this in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16.I get veils at weddings, as part of the whole virginity now being surrendered to her husband thing…it’s a nod to old customs and ideas, a symbol.
But in everyday life? I am glad the Church removed the requirement. I am not any more evil or sinful than my husband, and I am not any more an instrument of leading people into sin than my husband. So if he is not required to cover his head, why should I be? Because the whole point of the veil’s origins was that women should cover their beauty, as it leads men into sinful thoughts to look at it. (An idea best relegated to the oppressive Islamic countries that still teach it…)
I have more regard for men and their self-control than that. It’s their responsibility to guard their thoughts, not mine. And it’s not on me if they don’t. I don’t go around purposely trying to attract lustful thoughts, so it’s not my problem if they occur. And besides, my husband is way cuter than me… is he to blame if some woman sees him on the street and starts fantasizing inappropriately? Somehow that idea never gained currency, so if we can’t blame men for other people’s sins, then we can’t blame women for other people’s sins, either.
I have no problem with a woman who chooses to wear a veil. I get that it’s done out of a sense of modesty and respect. I just don’t think I should be forced to do it, and it certainly shouldn’t be church law. Just because of the origins of the idea of covering women more than men, and the reasons for it. I know there are tons of ways that the Church treats women differently from men, and some of them may even make some sense, but lets try to make sure that only the ones that make sense are being enshrined into laws.
It was only removed from Canon law because of feminists protesting in the 70’s.Funny you should bring this up b/c I just looked this up myself as there is a church nearby where i live that still does the old Latin Mass and encourages wearing veils. I didn’t think they were still mandatory, so I looked it up.
What your priest told you is only half the story: yes there was a miscommunication after Vatican 2 about wearing veils. I guess some reporter asked a bishop if veils would still be required after Vatican 2 and he said “no comment” but the story got printed as “veils won’t be required” so people stopped wearing them. Even when the Church said that it wasn’t true, so many people had stopped that the Church didn’t bother enforcing it. In 1983, however, the Church did officially remove the requirement from canon law. So up until 1983, your priest was correct.
I don’t wanna wear a veil, but maybe that’s b/c I’m young and don’t remember the days of veil-wearing women to church (I was just born in 1983 when the rule was removed, for goodness sakes) so maybe I see it as “old-fashioned”. I think it’s wonderful if your children wanna wear one, I don’t see what it can hurt!
Do you really think that Holy Mother Church would be influenced to change Canon Law because of “feminists protesting”? I doubt it sincerely.
I doubt it, but since it was a discipline, they might have evaluated it and decided that it was not helping people spiritually to require it (hoping that those who found the practice helpful spiritually would continue to teach the young ones that it was a laudable practice). The protests of the feminists might have been a consideration, though not the whole picture of why the requirement was dropped.
You give feminists way too much credit. Don’t you think if this were true, we’d also have women priests by now, and birth control would be OK?
So far I’ve never gotten a negative comment at Mass in real life. People are weird when I have my hair covered when I’m out and about with the girls, but even that has varied widely depending on where we’ve lived and generally that sort of hostility seems to come from women of a certain age who apparently think I’m oppressing myself and who usually express themselves in the grocery store with head shaking and glares. Mass, from a very liberal parish to the Latin Mass we attend during the school year, to quite a few parishes in between, has never been the problem that I imagined it would be when I started out.
DH wasn’t against the idea when I began to feel drawn to it. I imagine it would have been much more of a struggle if he hadn’t been supportive from the start…
Generally Inter Insignores isn’t really seen as a document that feminists love, and it’s where Pope Paul VI said: “But 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.”
Many women cover as a sign of respect and humility before the Eucharist. I collected some of my favorite reasons and explanations over the years here. I’ve know quite a few women who began to cover, myself included, because they felt a tug on their heart to do so… and they followed where it led. Not everyone feels drawn to the same devotions, but there’s certainly value for many women in this one for many of us.
What happened was that the practice of wearing a headcovering no longer had what is referred to as “normative value”; it simply had lost significance in the culture. Cardinal Burke refers to this, as did the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as far back as 1976, well before the change in Canon Law. This is from Inter Insigniores, their document discussing women and the priesthood:
I don’t remember when wearing a head covering was no longer compulsory, but it does seem that it was long before 1976. The idea that a woman could not enter a church without something on her head did place emphasis on wearing a hat or scarf over worship, the reason that we go into any church. Sometimes, the hat became a fashion statement.
Dear dixieagle,
Dear GraceDK,