![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-D1fLMCixWNo\/TyawOqXAR3I\/AAAAAAAABL0\/lnihU0oVhJs\/s1600\/veil2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nNot too long ago, Fr. Longnecker put up a hilarious guest post on his blog<\/a>. Mantilla Amontillado wrote about why she thinks American women should wear the mantilla:<\/p>\n Sometime I visit in America and when I go to Mass I can\u2019t believe my eyes. Girls coming to Mass wearing shorts and flippy floppies or what you call them? Sometime they are wearing tops with little thin straps over the shoulder and you can see their underwear. Hon. This is not good. Sure, it is not too modest, but to tell you the truth, usually the girl who wear these clothes is not too sexy anyway. You know what I mean? So it\u2019s not only no modest, it\u2019s not nice to look at anyway. They should cover up. Then sometime they are chewing gum as well! Madre de Dios! They are looking like cows chewing the cud you know?<\/i><\/p>\n So I think maybe if some girls wear the veil, then they dress the right way in those other clothes too you know? You never see girls in veils wearing halter tops\u2026(read the rest here<\/a>) <\/i><\/p>\n The \u201cto veil or not to veil\u201d debate was something I was wholly unaware of upon entering the Church. Like the \u201cskirts are for sinners\u201d argument, it\u2019s one of those things that, pre-conversion, might have made me call the whole lot of Catholicism crazycakes and run for the nearest Unitarian hill. (Just kidding. Unitarians actually are crazycakes.)<\/p>\n Luckily, the only hugely insane Catholic hurdle I had to jump was the ban on birth control. And that was a big one. There was also the whole \u201cwe eat God\u201d thing and the \u201cMary was without sin and bodily assumed into heaven and oh yeah YOU CAN PRAY TO HER\u201d shocker, but those were more a matter of faith and less a matter of my fear of many children.<\/p>\n So on the day of my baptism, confirmation and first communion I showed up at the church in a white, high-necked, sleeveless dress with my hair all uncovered and not a one of my friends, nor my godparents, nor my in-laws, nor my priest mentioned that my shoulders and my hair should be covered if I wanted to show God proper respect.<\/p>\n I had encountered the veil from a distance, as a few girls at UD wore one, and when I asked why most of my friends said that it was a pre-Vatican II thing that some people still hung on to. When we moved to Vegas our friends from UD had lots of traditionalist friends who wore the veil, and she and I talked about it quite a bit. Mostly our conversations revolved around horrifying reasons she had heard people give for wearing the veil. One mother had chosen to \u201cgive it a try\u201d one Sunday, and stuck to it after her five-year-old told her she looked \u201cbeautiful, like the Blessed Mother.\u201d Her reasoning was that anything that made her look more beautiful like the Blessed Mother was something she should always do.<\/p>\n Even then, though, I mostly discounted the \u201cveil\u201d thing as a fringe Catholic\u00a0 movement. But since entering the blogosphere, I\u2019ve come to realize that it\u2019s actually still a very prominent subject among the faithful.And while I\u2019ve totally come around to the \u201cdon\u2019t show your shoulders in Church\u201d thing, the veil debate still mystifies me.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t that I don\u2019t understand why some women chose to wear the veil. I do. It\u2019s just that I\u2019ve never come across an argument for the veil that convinces me personally <\/i>that it\u2019s either necessary or prudent. <\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with the above argument that wearing the veil makes one look like the Blessed Mother. This isn\u2019t something I\u2019ve ever come across in the blogosphere, but it was so bizarre to hear about that I feel I must address it. It\u2019s a very odd reason to wear the veil. Personally, I would like to be <\/i>more like Our Lady. I\u2019m pretty sure that looking <\/i>like Our Lady is utterly out of\u00a0 anyone in contemporary America\u2019s reach, given that A) we\u2019re not pre-Christian Jews from the Holy Land and B) I read somewhere that people are like, two feet taller now than they used to be 2000 years ago. So unless you are an extremely petite Palestinian\/Israeli with a face that conveys your utter purity, my guess is you\u2019re not going to look like Our Lady, regardless of your veiled or unveiled status. <\/p>\n But that\u2019s not a serious argument for the veil. The one that Mantilla gives on Fr. Longnecker\u2019s blog is much more common. That\u2019s the \u201cif you wear a veil you\u2019ll be less likely to wear a tank top and stripper shorts\u201d argument.<\/p>\n That argument makes sense to me\u2026sort of. I think that yes, if you wear a veil you would probably hesitate to put it on over a shelf-bra tank top and some daisy dukes. But honestly, anyone who would wear a shelf-bra tank top and daisy dukes to Mass probably doesn\u2019t even know what a veil is, or where to get one. And they probably don\u2019t care. So unless the veil is made compulsory again, which I don\u2019t see happening, that argument seems to me to be circular and pointless.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the \u201cI wear a veil because the Bible tells me to\u201d argument.<\/p>\n Oh man. As a recovering Protestant, any argument that begins with, ends with, or contains the phrase \u201cthe Bible said so\u201d is automatically viewed with suspicion, distrust and loads of eye-rolling. The Bible also says, in the same passage, that it is shameful for men to wear their hair long. My husband has long hair. I\u2019m not seeing anyone pulling him aside to chastise him for being a disgrace to himself. In the same passage the Bible says that if it is a disgrace for women to have their hair shorn, they should cover it. I haven\u2019t seen any arguments since the 20\u2019s about the bob being a moral sin. But perhaps someone out there does think that having long hair for a man is disgraceful, and women cutting their hair is shameful. Well, how about this. Three chapters later, in Corinthians, Paul commands the people of Corinth that, \u201cIf anyone speaks in a tongue, two, or at the most three, should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.\u201d<\/p>\n Er. Well, that\u2019s awkward. I haven\u2019t met many Catholics lately who advocate the speaking of tongues, let alone any who insist that only three people at the most may speak in tongues during Mass. Also, have you met many \u201ctongues translators\u201d among the faithful lately? <\/p>\n Much of the Bible, I have found, must be read as it was written. That is, Corinthians was written for a specific audience at a specific time. It was a letter. To the Corinthians. Not to the postmodern Americans. That doesn\u2019t mean that we can summarily ignore the whole of the New Testament, but it does mean that we ought to keep in mind the culture of those to whom Paul was writing, and how vastly it differed from our own. <\/p>\n The last two arguments I\u2019ve heard are the ones that I find the most convincing and also the most esoteric. (For the uninitiated into English-major-speak masses, esoteric basically means that I don\u2019t completely understand them.) These are the arguments that head coverings should be worn by women A) as an outward sign of an inward humility before the Blessed Sacrament and B) as a symbol that there is something holy within women (the potential to bear life) and women ought to cover their heads just as other holy things are veiled during the Mass. Cam\u2019s wonderful blog <\/a>does a great job explaining the first one here<\/a>, and this blog<\/a> which I have never read before but which is totally going in my reader explains the second one wonderfully here<\/a>. <\/p>\n Here are my thoughts on the first argument. While I understand, theoretically, the idea that a veil shows that you are submitting oneself before Christ, when I see a woman with a veil on I mostly can\u2019t stop looking at her. Not because I think she\u2019s purposefully drawing attention to herself, but because at every parish I have attended, veiling is quite out of the norm. And so attention is drawn. And even if it isn\u2019t intentional, which I\u2019m sure it never is, what I get out of seeing someone wear a veil in a predominantly non-veiled parish is less \u201cthat person is humbling herself before the Blessed Sacrament\u201d and more \u201cI\u2019m extremely distracted by the pretty lace on her head and also keep wondering if that veil makes God like her more.\u201d Now I realize that this is my own failure to focus and is not the fault of the veiled woman in any way, but having been on the receiving end of the distraction, I would feel very awkward indeed putting a veil on. <\/p>\n As far as the second one goes, I also understand that, theoretically. And theoretically I think it\u2019s lovely. Practically, though, my own potential to bear life makes me feel less like the bearer of holy potential and more like I suck at Creighton. I hate to say that, but that\u2019s where I\u2019m at. I do pray often that I will have a more gracious attitude toward my apparent super-fertility, but so far that\u2019s not forthcoming. So basically, if I put on a veil as a symbol of my life-giving potential, I would feel like a giant fraud.<\/p>\n I think that last sentence sums up the reason I choose not to veil, actually. All of the reasons to veil make sense to me theoretically, but none of them spark any sort of inward understanding. If I put a veil on I would feel like I was pretending to understand something, or feel a certain way, or be a certain way that I\u2019m simply not. And somehow I don\u2019t think that anyone would condone \u201cveiling as a means to pretend your way into being more holy\u201d.<\/p>\n