Chapel Veils

My regular correspondent sent me another photo of the chapel interior where St Timothy Fort Worth meets, this time during a DW mass:

Several of the women are wearing chapel veils, which bears out accounts I've had from time to time that chapel veils are common in the Texas communities. Msgr Charles Pope gives a pretty comprehensive discussion of the subject here. In brief, there is currently no Church policy on the subject, and head covering for women is completely voluntary.

On the other hand, this post at the Catholic Answers Forum begins to reflect my own views:

From the days when mastadons roamed the earth (ie pre-conciliar times) this male recalls women normally wearing hats in church. Whether a dressy hat or a beret, it didn't matter. Chapel veils (not mantillas) were generally considered an "emergency measure" and many women kept one in their purse "just in case."

I recall that, in grade school, the nuns always had a supply of simple chapel veils at hand for the girls who didn't have a hat for First Friday or other occasions. Those who could afford it would pay 25 cents. Those who could not got it free. The important thing was a head covering, not the money.

I've always liked the tradition of a head covering for women, and I still do (even though I do not voluntarily attend the OF). At the same, though, I don't have a problem with women going bare-headed, even to the EF.

These days, there seems to be this mantilla-cult that has emerged, and I just don't get it. If the women are of Spanish descent, it's fine because they know how to wear it. OTOH, those who are not, do not: they generally wrap themselves up in the thing, just about like a burka. EF or OF, I do have a problem with that.

The lady in the center of the photo above strikes me as an adherent of the veil-as-burka school, and beyond that, I continue to view photos snapped during mass as tacky. Indeed, I would say that the phtographer, perhaps a church lady of the sort we've seen before, focused on the burka-lady receiving the sacrament as something especially holy.

All I can say is that this is a very small group of a size reflecting the small venues we've been seeing here. A drop-in could well get a sense of ostentatious exclusivity, feel uncomfortable, and not return. Now, maybe I've got the wrong impression, and in that case, this small group will grow and thrive.

Er, how long have they been in that small chapel? How's the building fund coming along?