Why did St Charles Borromeo exclude the office of St Veronica?

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Giggly_Giraffe said:
ecatholic2000.com/cathopedia/vol15/volfifteen312.shtml

What does it mean that St Veronica had an office?
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‘Office’ meant that Veronica had a feastday with readings and prayers specific for the occasion.

The problem (and the reason why St. Charles Borromeo excluded the office from the Milanese Rite) is, we really do not have any solid historical information about Veronica. Originally, ‘Berenice’ or ‘Veronica’ was a name given to the woman who was healed of her hemorrhage when she touched Jesus’ clothes. (Like how ‘Dismas’ among other names was the name given to the good thief.) So the only thing we know for sure about ‘Berenice/Veronica’ other than what the gospels tell us: she had a hemorrhage for twelve years and was cured when she touched “the hem of [Jesus’] garment.”

Now as time went on, in the West a story about a miraculous image of Jesus got attached to this woman. Originally it was a man-made image, a portrait of Jesus or on a panel she had commissioned so that she would have something to remember Jesus by. (A much earlier story had the cured woman build a statue of Jesus curing her as a tribute!)

But the story grew more elaborate with each retelling: soon it was now reputed to be an image ‘not made with (human) hands’. In this version, Jesus rendered the painter (in some later versions of the story, this mystery painter is claimed to be St. Luke) unnecessary by going to Veronica’s house Himself and wiping His face with the canvas the painter intended to use, miraculously imprinting it with His image. (It was pretty much the Western version of the Eastern story of King Abgar and the Holy Mandylion, a story which went through much of the same development.) By the late Middle Ages, the story evolved again: whereas the earlier versions of the Veronica story place the event somewhere in Jesus’ ministry, now Veronica is imagined to meet Jesus as He was carrying His cross to Calvary; the painter’s canvas or panel now becomes her veil or handkerchief that she wipes Jesus’ face on as an act of compassion.

What really complicates things is that you have this relic venerated in an oratory in St. Peter’s Basilica since around the 11th century, confusingly also called ‘veronica’ - in this case, a corruption of the Latin-Greek phrase vera icona ‘true image’ - and often also reputed to be a miraculously-formed image. One has to distinguish between ‘Veronica’ (the woman) and ‘the veronica’ (the image/relic), but the annoying thing here is, folks back then did confuse and interchange one with another: the portrait Veronica possessed was identified with the veronica in St. Peter’s. (Though note that our earliest testimony to the existence of the veronica in St. Peter’s (from 1160) gives a different version of the origin story of the relic: there it is claimed to be a towel Jesus wiped His face on when He sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane (no woman is involved here, nor is an image explicitly mentioned).)
 
 
Now here’s the thing. In many medieval missals (especially German ones), there is usually a votive Mass dedicated to the veronica, but in many cases they refer to the vera icona, the image of Christ’s face, rather than the woman. (Votive Masses dedicated to the different instruments used in the Passion - say, the cross or the nails or the crown of thorns - were quite popular at that time.)

Though as mentioned, people can and did confuse the two: in Milan, the feast of the woman Veronica (with special office) found its way into the Ambrosian Rite missal printed in 1555 and 1560 (Missa in festo S. Veronicae matronae ‘Mass in the feast of St. Veronica, matron’). This is what St. Charles Borromeo removed. He removed Veronica’s feast from the Ambrosian calendar because, as mentioned, concrete historical evidence about Veronica’s life is lacking. In fact, the Roman Martyrology (first published in 1583 under Pope Gregory XIII) also fails to include her, especially since the earliest martyrologies do not list her either. She does have in the popular level though the feastday of July 12th (also, February 4th). For all intents and purposes, the more neutral feast of the Holy Face of Jesus essentially stands in the place of the medieval commemorations of the veronica.
 
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