Why is the mantilla (specifically) so popular among US traditional Catholics?

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To be clear: This is NOT a thread about veiling in general.

I have always wondered - what’s the story behind the popularity of the mantilla specifically among US women who wear head coverings? It doesn’t seem to have a lot of history behind it other than in a certain part of Spain. And historically it looks like most women just wore whatever sort of hat or scarf was common in their culture, rather than something specific like that. How did it become the primary head covering worn among traditional Catholic women? Anyone know?
 
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This is just my guess, but in general, hats in a house of worship is viewed as bad manners. Veils are not hats, so they’re more acceptable. The number of Hispanics across the US may also have something to do with it.
 
Jacqueline Kennedy wore one back in the 60s. I think a lot of people imitated her.
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I think you are onto something. I don’t remember everyone wearing those at mass. Women wore hats or they wore the round lacy chapel veils.
 
There’s a little booklet called The Chapel Veil, originally published by Requiem Press. You can find it online. It’s a beautiful little booklet on veiling.
 
I do too but in late fall, winter, and early spring a hat keeps me warmer. My brother gave me a set of hat & gloves (finally found the hat - thank you, St. Anthony!) which I still wear. (I did wear a veil this morning to Liturgy though.) The nice thing about veils is that it hides your hair if it’s a mess (like mine is usually😁).
 
In Italy it was widely used by women in church. I believe it is a Catholic tradition stemming from the beginning. Read St. Paul’s letters.

Peace!
 
Margaret_Ann said:
There’s a little booklet called The Chapel Veil, originally published by Requiem Press. You can find it online. It’s a beautiful little booklet on veiling.
Click to expand...
Does it talk about mantillas specifically, though?
JerryZ said:
In Italy it was widely used by women in church. I believe it is a Catholic tradition stemming from the beginning. Read St. Paul’s letters.

Peace!
Click to expand...
I guarantee that the mantilla is not a Catholic tradition stemming from the beginning and it is definitely not in St. Paul’s letters. For one thing, up until around the time of the industrial revolution, lace was far too expensive for most women.
 
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I have a long red veil, a long green veil, one light blue veil (for the Blessed Mother’s feast days), lots of white veils and 2 or 3 black veils plus some little chapel caps too. Re the black veils: One of them which was given to me as a gift is a blessed veil. However I don’t know which one it is… 😱
 
DarkLight said:
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Margaret_Ann:
There’s a little booklet called The Chapel Veil , originally published by Requiem Press. You can find it online. It’s a beautiful little booklet on veiling.
Click to expand...
Does it talk about mantillas specifically, though?
Click to expand...
I’ll have to dig it up - it’s buried somewhere in all my stuff…
DarkLight said:
40.png
JerryZ:
In Italy it was widely used by women in church. I believe it is a Catholic tradition stemming from the beginning. Read St. Paul’s letters.
Peace!
Click to expand...
I guarantee that the mantilla is not a Catholic tradition stemming from the beginning and it is definitely not in St. Paul’s letters. For one thing, up until around the time of the industrial revolution, lace was far too expensive for most women.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Specifically mantillas, no, but St. Paul did write in 1 Cor. 11: 5-10 re women wearing covering their hair when praying in church. And as other threads have mentioned, it was required in the 1917 Code of Canon Law.

Also, in the Aeneid, the wife of Aeneas makes sure she is veiled.
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Margaret_Ann said:
Specifically mantillas, no, but St. Paul did write in 1 Cor. 11: 5-10 re women wearing covering their hair when praying in church. And as other threads have mentioned, it was required in the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
Click to expand...
Yes, but I’ve been on CAF since 2012 and I really, really, really do not want to read yet another thread discussing the practice on head covering in general. I don’t have nearly enough popcorn for that!
 
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I have an ivory veil that I rarely wear, but I have several black veils I wear all the time. I wear a variety of hats sometimes also; my favourite is a pillbox from the 1940s. I also have a lavender veil for Lent.

Our parish has NO services. I’m usually one of maybe two or three who veil, depending on the week. It’s just a personal choice for me.
 
Perhaps American Catholic women wore veils because Protestant women wore hats?
 
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Interesting topic! I’m finding the answers fascinating, as someone who finds the topic of veiling interesting, but have never understood the phenomenon of mantillas specifically.

The speculation that famous figures like Jackie Kennedy might have prompted this previously-Spanish trend for Americans, seems plausible to me.

I have no desire to discourage anyone else from wearing them, it’s just that for me personally a mantilla seems so far outside my local cultural norms it’d feel artificial for me to choose that for a veiling technique over, say, a scarf. So it being unfamiliar territory for me, I’m finding this discussion interesting to watch.
 
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Mantillas are beautiful and easier to bring if you don’t want to wear your headcovering outside of the Church - you can put it in your purse, which you can’t do with a hat.

But hats ans scarfs etc are perfectly acceptable. I have seen older ladies wearing hats.
 
I don’t know why they specifically have become so popular. I wear one because it fits easily in a purse or my pocket, but also because a mantilla is the most common head covering people wear.

I’ve tried wearing scarves but I feel like I need to match those to outfits and I have difficulty figuring out how to tie/wear it.
 
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