Veils!

A report from mass at the principal parish of the US-Canadian Ordinariate says, "Many of the young women wear veils. White for unmarried women, black for married ones. Everyone is dressed to the nines."

This sent me, first, to my wife, to ask exactly when ladies stopped wearing veils to church. I have only the faintest memory, in fact, of any women in my family wearing any veils at all, and I believe they were in my grandparents' generation. My wife says this generally stopped in the 1950s or early 60s, maybe about the same time gentlemen stopped wearing fedoras. This is Houston, though, but I would still say it's something out of Flannery O'Connor, who of course was a Catholo-Catholic and thought this sort of thing was silly. White for unmarried women, black for married ones. My wife suggested I do some research.

In a recent post, Fr Z noted,

Yes, there is an exact way for the veil to be worn and when it should be put on.

As far as the act of veiling is concerned, it should be done no farther than 20 meters from the lowest step of the church’s door.

Moving on, the edge of the veil should be drawn precisely 4.25cm from the critical angle of the hairdo’s forward arc. Centimeters, mind you.

More seriously, this account, which seems informed and wise, suggests that it is of course no longer a requirement of any sort in the Catholic Church; that when it was, any sort of head covering would do, not just black veils for married ladies and white for virgins; most recently, it's common at Extraordinary Form masses and a matter of courtesy to wear one then.

There is no mention of the proper covering at the Ordinariate rite, but since the usage at the place where the Ordinary sits must be normative, I assume it's done frequently in the US-Canadian franchise. I will be interested to hear any reports from elsewhere on our continent.

In general, though, it seems more and more like this Ordinariate stuff ain't for me.