Pope Linus, the first pope to succeed St. Peter, forbade women to enter church with their heads uncovered. Look how nice and elegant the lady looks with the chapel veil. . It adds to her beauty, it doesn’t take it away. For almost 2,000 years women have been covering their heads in church out of respect to Our Lord, the angels, the priests, and their husbands, as St. Paul says. Code of Canon law, Canon1262,#2 stated that “women must have their head covered, and modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord.” Notice, this was a binding decree.Keep in mind now that at the release of the 1917 Code of Canon law head coverings had been observed for about 1900 years. Would you say this was an immemorial custom? Now this is what Canon 28 states in the new Code of 1983: “Unless it (the 1983 code) makes express mention of them (the issue of head coverings), a law (of the 1983 code) does not revoke centenary or immemorial customs (head coverings in this case), nor does a universal law revoke particular customs.” It seems to this writer that if the decree in the 1917 code was not abrogated by the 1983 code, then the decree is still in force. Thus, women are obligated under pain of sin to cover their heads in church, for a decree obliges under pain of sin. It is not a suggestion but a command. We are not free to pick and choose what we will obey and what we will not. I am not saying it is a mortal sin, but at least a venial one. Notice the Code also insists on modesty. If a woman argues she doesn’t have to cover her head, I guess by the same token she could argue she doesn’t have to observe modesty, which seems to be the thinking by many women and clergy, because there is so much immodesty in churches, and so much silence on the part of the clergy. Reminds me of the priest in purgatory for a 100 years Teresa Neuman was suffering for; the priests and bishops Sr. Josepha Menedez saw burning in hell, and the woman who went to hell for immodesty, page 81, Hell and How To avoid Hell.
St. Padre Pio would not tolerate low-necked dresses or short, tight skirts, and he forbade his spiritual daughters to wear transparent stockings Each year his severity increased. He stubbornly dismissed them from his confession, even before they set foot inside, if he judged them to be improperly dressed. On some mornings he drove away one after another, until he ended up hearing very few confessions. His brothers observed these drastic purges with a certain uneasiness and decided to fasten a sign on the church door: BY PADRE PIO’S EXPLICIT WISH, WOMEN MUST ENTER THE CONFESSIONAL WEARING SKIRTS AT LEAST 8 INCHES BELOW THE KNEE. IT IS FORBIDDEN TO BORROW LONGER DRESSES IN CHURCH AND TO WEAR THEM TO CONFESSION.’’
Let us avoid the slightest danger of offending God in this area or of being an occasion of temptation for our neighbor. May the fashions of the world not be our model for our attire, but rather the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. St. Augustine said: “WRONG IS WRONG EVEN IF THE WHOLE WORLD IS DOING IT. RIGHT IS RIGHT EVEN IF NOBODY IS DOING IT!” My brothers and sisters growing up used to say: “Well, if everybody else is going to hell, are you going to go with them?” The canonization of Padre Pio gives us the opportunity to recall the concerned severity of the saint at San Giovanni Rotundo who put this poster on the door of his church: THE CHURCH IS THE HOUSE OF GOD. IT IS FORBIDDEN FOR MEN TO ENTER WITH BARE ARMS OR IN SHORTS. IT IS FORBIDDEN FOR WOMEN TO ENTER IN TROUSERS, WITHOUT A VEIL, ON THEIR HEAD, IN SHORT CLOTHING, LOW NECKLINES, SLEEVELESS OR IMMODEST DRESSES. St. Padre Pio insisted that women did not wear slacks.
St. Paul says in the Douay-Rheims scripture, “The immodest…shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Gal. 5;19-21. Scripture says women should not dress like men or men like women. “A woman shall not be clothed with man’s apparel, neither shall a man use woman’s apparel: for he that doeth these things is abominable before God.” Deut.22:5 What would you think if you saw men starting to wear dresses? St. Paul also wrote than women were to cover their heads: “But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered disgraceth her head…”1 Cor.11:5. All these things were on the door of St. Padre Pio and he was just upholding the law of God as stated in Scripture. Do you suppose these new trends introduced are those warned about by Our Lady to Blessed Jacinta of Fatima? “Certain fashions shall be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much.” “Very much,” she said. Women always try to rationalize wearing slacks. Has any woman ever seen an image of Our Lady in slacks?
Women seem to think there is nothing wrong with coming to church with head uncovered. Would they also think the same about immodesty if all the other women came to church that way? As a matter of fact, many women seem to think it is okay because many women do, and the clergy do not correct them. Our Lady told Enzo Alocci, a stigmatist in Italy, “Son, go and tell the priests to be stricter towards the faithful and send away all persons entering the church in indecent dresses, because it is not suitable to come in the presence of the Divine Majesty in such indecency.” As a matter of fact, the Church does have a dress code to this effect, but the clergy are not doing their duty in upholding it. I recall reading in The Way of Divine Love that Jesus told Sr. Josepha Menendez that priests were losing their souls while absolving others. Fr. Lucian Hayden once said, “priests were probably more guilty for things they should have done and didn’t do, than for things they did do.” This priest was one of the most beautiful, charitable, and zealous priests you would ever meet. I heard him one morning correcting a lady on the phone encouraging her to get back in the Church, and he told her that if he didn’t warn her of the danger, he himself could go to hell for not doing his duty. I often wonder how God is going to judge his priests who allow women to come into church and tempt men to lust inside and outside the House of God, hear their confessions and supposedly absolve them, while letting them live in their sin. St. Alphonsus and St. John Vianney would tell parents that if their children went to hell because they did not instruct them, that the parents would be sure to be in hell with them. Well, would not the same be true of the clergy? Fr. Rhodes once preached on how the rich man went to hell for not feeding Lazarus, not for what he did do, but for what he failed to do. “To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is a sin.” St. James4:17.
What do the Fathers of the Church say concerning head covering in church?
St. Linus, elected in 67A.D. as the second pope of the Catholic Church, died in 76A.D. and is buried near the tomb of St. Peter, forbade women to enter the Church with uncovered heads.
St. Irenaeus(120-202A.D.) translated 1 Cor.11:10 as follows: “A woman ought to have a veil (kalumma) upon her head, because of the angel.” (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 1, 8:2, cited in The Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Tertullian (160-215A.D.) In commenting on! Cor.11:4,5, Tertullian notes, “Behold two diverse names, Man and Woman ‘every one’ in each case: two laws, mutually distinctive; on the one hand a law of veiling, on the other a law of baring.” He argues in his essay On The Veiling of Virgins that the command that women cover their heads during prayer is not based on custom: “I will show in Latin also that it behooves our virgins to be veiled from the time that they have passed the turning point of their age: that this observance is exacted by truth, on which no one can impose prescription-no space of items, no influence of persons, no privilege of regions. For these, for the most part are the sources whence, from some ignorance or simplicity, custom finds its beginning; and then it is successfully confirmed by usage, and thus is maintained in opposition to truth. But Our Lord Christ surnamed himself Truth, not custom…Herein consists the defense of our opinion, in accordance with Scripture, in accordance with nature, in accordance with discipline. Scripture founds the law; nature joins to attest it; discipline exacts it. Which of these three does a custom founded on mere opinion appear in behalf of or what is the color of the opposite view? God’s Is Scripture; God’s is nature; God’s is discipline. Whatever is contrary to these is not God’s. If Scripture is uncertain, nature is manifest; and concerning nature’s testimony Scripture cannot be uncertain. If there is doubt about nature, discipline points out what is more sanctioned by God. For nothing is to him dearer than humility; nothing more acceptable than modesty; nothing more offensive than glory and the study of men-pleasing.” Here we see that it is a command of God and not mere custom, as also St. Augustine understands it, as you will see a little later on.
St. Clement of Alexandria: (153-217A.D.) He also understood 1Cor 11:5 to refer to a veil of fabric and not to a woman’s hair: “And she will never fall, who puts before her eyes modesty, and her shawl. For this is the wish of the Word, since it is becoming for her to pray veiled.” (The Instructor, Book 3, Chap. 11).
St. John Chrysostom (340-407A.D.) He was the great preacher of Antioch. The following excerpts are taken from Homily XXVl (1 Cor. 11:2-16). St. John Chrysostom identifies the problem St. Paul addresses where he says: “Their women used to pray and prophesy unveiled and with their head bare.” Especially to the point of a woman needing a separate head covering other than her long hair (cf. 1 Cor. 11:15) is the following remark: “And if he be given her for a covering’ say you, ‘wherefore need she add another covering? That not nature only but also her own will may have part in her acknowledgement of subjection. For that thou oughtest to be covered nature herself by anticipation enacted a law. Add now, I pray, thine own part also, that thou mayest not seem to subvert the very laws of nature; a proof of most insolent rashness, to buffet not only with us, but with nature also.” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily XXVl:2; cited in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers).
St. Jerome (345-429A.D.) Though Scripture does not endorse the practice of virgins shaving their heads (rather the Scriptures condemn such a practice in 1 Cor. 11 14-15, nevertheless St. Jerome clearly understood St. Paul to be teaching that a woman ought to wear a fabric cover upon her head: “It is usual in the monasteries in Egypt and Syria for virgins and widows who have vowed themselves to God and have renounced the world and have trodden underfoot its pleasures, to ask the mothers of their communities to cut their hair; not that afterwards they go about with their heads uncovered in defiance of the apostles’ command (1 Cor. 11:5). (St. Jerome, Letter CXLVll:5, cited in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers).
St. Augustine (354-430A.D.) “It is not becoming even in married women to uncover their hair, since the apostle commands the women to keep their heads covered.’ (Note that St. Augustine interprets this as a command, and a command is binding). ‘For she is instructed for this very reason to cover her head, which he (man) is forbidden to do because he is the image of God.” (St. Augustine, On The Trinity, Book XII, Chapter 7, verse 9)
1917 Code of Canon Law: “Men, in a church or outside a church, while they are assisting at sacred rites, shall be bare-headed, unless the approved mores of the people or peculiar circumstances of things determine otherwise; women, however, shall have a covered head and modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord.” (Canon 1262, #2) It is said of St. Louis de Montfort, that glorious saint of Our Lady, never wore anything on his head because he felt like he was always in the presence of God.
Finally, we will quote Pope Paul VI from the time that reporters sent out false information over the world saying women no longer had to cover their heads From an article from The Atlanta Journal (June 21, 1969) entitled, “Women Required to Cover Head, Vatican Insists”, it appears that Pope Paul VI instructed one of his officials to clarify the Church’s unchanged discipline regarding head coverings for women:: “A Vatican official says there has been no change,” as reported, in the Roman Catholic rule that women cover their head in church.’ The Rev. Annibale Bugnini, secretary of the New Congregation of Divine Worship, said the report stemmed from a misunderstanding of a statement he made at a news conference in May. “The rule has not been changed”, he said, “It is a matter of discipline.” End. “The rule has not been changed,” contrary to what most people have heard.*
- Note: In the book, AA-1025, one of the anti-apostle’s tactics was to send out false information all over the world. He said they had Networks everywhere, and when they wanted to make a change in the Church, they would send out false information all over the world through these networks and make everyone believe it had come from Rome. This is how they convinced the world to think the head covering was no longer mandated, but as you see above, the Secretary of the New Congregation of Divine Worship said, ‘’The Rule has not been changed. It is a matter of discipline.” Ladies, please begin to wear your veils again, like you are supposed to. This is a lie you’ve been told, an error. We must oppose error. Pope St. Felix III said: “Not to oppose error is to approve it. Not to defend truth is to suppress it.” As I have shown you, it is contrary to Scripture, and shameful it says, for a woman to pray with her head uncovered, and contrary to Church tradition, even though almost the whole world now believes otherwise. I will end with a quote from St. Augustine, “Wrong is wrong , even if the whole world is doing it. Right is right, even if nobody is doing it.”