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Canon Law in Regards to Liturgy:

Now, let’s attack this from another angle using the built-in legal stipulations found in the 1983 code. Since the 1917 code made veil-wearing part of the liturgy due to the fact that women could not pray with their head uncovered at Mass, and men could not pray with their head covered, we can use the canonical laws regarding liturgy to address this issue. For example, Canon 2 says:

“For the most part the Code does not define the rites which must be observed in celebrating liturgical actions. Therefore, liturgical laws in force until now retain their force unless one of them is contrary to the canons of the Code.”

Here we see that the 1983 code is admitting that it has not “defined” many of the things that take place in “liturgical actions.” Since veil-wearing is a liturgical action, then it follows that, since the 1983 code does not address veil-wearing, “therefore” the “law” of veil-wearing is “in force until now” and “retains its force “unless…contrary to the canons of the code,” and obviously it is not contrary, since the 1983 code does not address veil-wearing.

Canon Law in Regards to Custom:

Now, let’s attack this problem from yet another angle afforded to us by the self-imposed limitations of the 1983 code. Title II of the 1983 code has six canons in regards to “custom.” Custom is important in Catholic legal code for two reasons:

First, as Canon 27 says, “Custom is the best interpreter of laws.” This means that, even though canon law is its own legal entity, it is not an end in itself, since it must be interpreted in accordance with tradition, and, as we saw above, it must “harmonize” with previous law.

Second, if an act is practiced long enough in the Catholic Church, then it assumes what the code calls “the force of law,” and it becomes a law, in itself, without having to be validated by or connected to a canonical law. Regardless whether the custom enters or leaves canon law (as it did in 1917 and 1983, respectively), it remains a custom, for custom, legally speaking, is totally distinct from canon law. In fact, so strong is custom that, if the custom has been practiced for 100 years or longer, then not even a canonical law can nullify it. We find this law regarding customs stated in two of the 1983 codes:

Canon 26 says: “Unless the competent legislator has specifically approved it, a custom contrary to the canon law now in force or one beyond a canonical law obtains the force of law only if it has been legitimately observed for thirty continuous and complete years. Only a centenary [100 years] or immemorial custom, however, can prevail against a canonical law which contains a clause prohibiting future customs.”

Now, ask yourself the question: Before the 1917 code had included veil-wearing as part of canon law, how many years did the Church practice the custom of veil-wearing? Answer: since the practice of veil-wearing was never interrupted after St. Paul gave the original scriptural command in 1 Cor 11, and since we have seen the Fathers and Medievals give their unanimous consent to its perpetuation, it is not difficult to see that veil-wearing must be an “immemorial custom” in the eyes of the 1983 code. As such, it is impervious to abrogation.

In fact, as the 1983 code puts it, practices such as veil-wearing could even “prevail against a canonical law which contains a clause prohibiting future customs.” Of course, at this point I am arguing hypothetically in order to emphasize my point because, in fact, there is no canon in the 1983 code which “prohibits” veil-wearing, and thus the thrust of Canon 26 is all the more forceful. I hope you see my logic.

This is the glory of the Catholic Church - tradition holds sway. Perhaps THAT is why the 1983 code doesn’t mention anything about veil-wearing, since its author knew that mentioning it would be superfluous in light of the traditional safe guards built around immemorial customs. Ironically, what the modernist thinks is a non-obligation due to silence, is, in fact, silence due to obligation.

That the force of law associated with centenary or immemorial laws is virtually impregnable is noted in two more canons. Canon 5.1 states: “…contrary customs are…considered suppressed unless the Code expressly provides otherwise or unless they are centenary or immemorial customs…” and Canon 28 says: “…a contrary custom…unless it [the code] makes express mention of them, however, a law does not revoke centenary or immemorial customs…” So we see that, even if a custom is “contrary” to the new code, centenary and immemorial customs have virtual immunity from being reversed unless the code specifically says otherwise. Again, I am making a hypothetical argument in order to overemphasize the point, since (a) veil-wearing is not a “contrary” custom but a 1900 year old tradition backed up by divine commands in Scripture, and (b) veil-wearing is not specifically addressed, let alone abrogated, in the 1983 code. In other words, if “contrary” customs possess a certain amount of immunity, imagine how much immunity non-contrary customs, like veil-wearing, possess!

So far, we’ve covered all the bases that canon law has to offer. Things don’t look good for the modernist Church. More to come, next time. (NB: I know a good place to by inexpensive veils).

Robert Sungenis

Right away we can see a problem, because the practice of Catholic women wearing veils stopped long before the 1983 code was published, which tells us that there was something else going on around this time period that forced the practice into disuse.

 

CFN Part III

In the last issue of CFN, we addressed the matter of Canon Law. We saw that the 1983 Code of Canon Law does not rescind the Scriptural and Traditional-based practice of head coverings for women, and, in fact, it does not even address the issue. By the 1983 code’s own admission, if the issue is not addressed, then one cannot presume that the code has rescinded the practice, let alone seen as tampering with or antithetical to “immemorial customs” such as head coverings for women

Because of its self-imposed limitation, when in the 1983 code John Paul II says:

“Therefore, in promulgating the Code today, I am full aware that this act is an expression of pontifical authority and therefore is invested with a primatial character” (p. xxix),

this means, unless he officially decides to rewrite the code, John Paul II is bound by what he himself put in the 1983 code. Thus he is bound to abide by the rule of “customs” as outlined in canons 23-28; by the stipulation in canon 2 regarding the continuity of liturgical practices; and the stipulations in canons 5, 20 and 21 regarding the limits and proper interpretation of canon law. Because of these things, it can be safely said that there has been no official change in the traditional teaching on head coverings.

If this is the case, then how did the traditional practice fall into disuse in our generation? Was it because of a misinterpretation of the 1983 code of canon law? Hardly, for most Catholic women had already dispensed with head coverings long before the 1983 code was published. In fact, they began putting their hats on the shelf shortly after the closure of Vatican II some twenty years earlier. As nuns were leaving their convents and priests were leaving their parishes and students were leaving their seminaries, so women were leaving their traditional role as submissive wives to their husbands. The discarding of the veil or hat symbolized that departure. The silence of 1983 code on head coverings was merely a capitulation to the whim of the liberal Catholics who were now running the show.

As for pinpointing the possible time and cause, it is widely reported that during Vatican II a group of journalists had asked Annibale Bugnini (the prelate who was eventually exposed as a Freemason and stripped of his work at the Vatican by Paul VI) whether women would still be required to wear head coverings. Bugnini is said to have replied that the matter was not a topic of debate at the Council, but apparently, he gave some subtle indication that the matter could be open for discussion at a future date. The journalists, whether because they already had a liberal agenda to fulfill or were accidentally inferring a conclusion from what Bugnini implied, nevertheless, interpreted his remarks to mean that women would not have to wear head coverings any longer in the Catholic Church. Correct or not, their interpretation was reported in newspapers all over the world and soon hatless women became the prevalent, yet unofficial, practice. That, coupled with the fact that the 1960s was a decade of social revolution which entertained many heretofore unheard of ideas and practices, liberal bishops and priests began softening the requirement of head coverings, yet without one official word from the Vatican to do so.

As more and more Catholic woman were coming to Church functions without the traditional head covering, it wasn’t long before the Vatican was approached concerning the official teaching of the Church on this burning issue. Surprisingly, the same man who may have fomented the disuse by his off-hand comments in 1963, Annibale Bugnini, held an interview, which was subsequently reported in The Atlanta Journal of June 21, 1969, in an article titled “Women Required to Cover Head, Vatican Insists.” The article stated:

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 for Divine Worship, said the reports stemmed from a misunderstanding of a statement he made at a news conference in May. Bugnini stated: “The rule has not been changed. It is a matter of general discipline.”

Since Bugnini revealed that a statement he made in May 1969 was “misunderstood,” it stands to reason that whatever he said in1963 regarding head coverings was also “misunderstood,” since there could be little else to explain why a hoard of journalists all interpreted him as saying that head coverings would no longer be required. Knowing Bugnini’s background (a Freemason bent on changing the traditional practices of the Church, and the chief architect of the Novus Ordo Mass), what was “misunderstood” both in 1963 and 1969 was probably something that Bugnini subtly planted in the minds of the reporters. The likelihood is that someone at the Vatican got wind of Bugnini’s “misunderstood statement” and then ordered him to make it clear that the issue of head coverings “has not been changed” and “is a matter of general discipline.” Shortly thereafter, Bugnini’s anti-Catholic identity was finally exposed in that same year and Paul VI had him deported from the Vatican, but the damage had already been done. For the first time in Catholic history, women were entering the churches in droves without their head coverings, all because of Bugnini’s “misunderstood” statements to the press. Yet, it must equally be recognized that, the last official statement we have from a Vatican envoy is that, regarding head coverings for women, “the rule has not been changed [and] it is a matter of general discipline.” But hardly anyone paid attention to that clarification.

The matter of head coverings did not come up again (and never has come up again since) except for a brief mention by Paul VI in his apostolic letter of 1975, Inter Insignores. The main topic of Inter Insignores, however, was not head coverings, but the role of women in the church, particularly the prohibition of women to the priesthood. In the letter, of which I will underline the pertinent parts, Paul VI writes:

Another objection [to ordaining women as priests] is based upon the transitory character that one claims to see today in some of the prescriptions of Saint Paul concerning women, and upon the difficulties that some aspects of his teaching raise in this regard. But it must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor 11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value. However, the Apostle's forbidding of women to speak in the assemblies (1 Cor 14:34-35; 1 Ti, 2:12) is of a different nature, and exegetes define its meaning in this way: Paul in no way opposes the right, which he elsewhere recognizes as possessed by women, to prophesy in the assembly (1 Cor 11:15); the prohibition solely concerns the official function of teaching in the Christian assembly. For Saint Paul this prescription is bound up with the divine plan of creation (1 Cor 11:7; Gen 2:18-24): it would be difficult to see in it the expression of a cultural fact. Nor should it be forgotten that we owe to Saint Paul one of the most vigorous texts in the New Testament on the fundamental equality of men and women, as children of God in Christ (Gal 3:28). Therefore there is no reason for accusing him of prejudices against women, when we note the trust that he shows towards them and the collaboration that he asks of them in his apostolate.

Although Paul VI’s statement appears to demote the status and requirement of head coverings, such a conclusion cannot be based on the format and the content of Paul VI’s words for the following reasons:

1) Paul VI’s main topic, and the one to which he appears to be making a definitive decision for the Church, is the issue of ordaining women to the priesthood, not head coverings. The issue of head coverings is added only to serve as evidence that St. Paul was not a misogynist or that he did not have “prejudices against women.” Thus, Paul VI is not making a decision on whether women should wear head coverings. Moreover, the rule of interpreting magisterial documents is this: unless the magisterium is addressing the specific topic in question and intends on giving a definitive decision on that topic, than that topic is not being officially addressed and no formal decision regarding its validity is being decided.

In effect, no one can appeal to Inter Insignores to support the contention that the Catholic Church has made an official declaration that it no longer requires head coverings for women, especially in the face of Bugnini’s statement from the Vatican six years earlier that said: “The rule has not been changed. It is a matter of general discipline.” An interlocutor may, of course, use Paul VI’s statement to demonstrate what the pope’s opinion may have been in 1975 before he studied the issue in depth, but he cannot refer to it as an official teaching of the Church. No pope would want to be held to such rigorous and non-contextualized use of his words.

(2) Regarding the mind of the pope, it is obvious that Paul VI did not want to have his words regarding head coverings interpreted as official Church teaching, since he is careful to say that such ordinances were “probably inspired by the customs of the period.” By using the word “probably,” it is clear that Paul VI is giving a personal opinion on the origin and nature of head coverings, which opinion, in fact, is quite dubious, since there is little evidence to support such an assertion, The fact that the wearing of head coverings was practiced for the 1975 years prior to Paul VI’s opinion means that the preponderant teaching and practice of the Church did not see it as merely a “custom of the period” to be discontinued in any of the remaining nineteen centuries. Accordingly, as we noted earlier, the 1983 code of canon law under John Paul II has stated quite clearly that such “customs” attain the “force of law” if they have been practiced for a sufficient amount of time (canons 23-28), and as such, they are impervious to alteration, especially from letters such as Inter Insignores in which the pope is not setting out to address the issue directly at all.

(3) This leads us to investigate just what Paul VI meant when he said “such requirements no longer have a normative value.” As we noted above, since the pope is basing the conclusion of “normative value” on the premise that head coverings were “probably inspired by the customs of the period,” then, by virtue of the indecisiveness of the word “probably,” his conclusion about “normative value” is based on an unproven, or even faulty, premise, and therefore the conclusion is logically invalid. The rules of logic demand that one cannot make a definitive conclusion based on a premise that is unproven.

That, coupled with the fact that the mind of all the popes previous to Paul VI understood head coverings, indeed, to have “normative value” by the mere fact that the Church, long after the first century, continued the practice of requiring women to wear head coverings, then the tradition and the custom have been established, and a conscientious post-conciliar apologist would certainly not want to put Paul VI in the position of appearing to create an official Church teaching against an immemorial tradition. If the apologist does not take such precautions, it would necessitate that, after the first century, head coverings had no “normative value” because, being merely a “custom of the period,” the patristic and medieval Church were mistaken in not seeing the practice as a mere first century idiosyncracy, and thus mistaken in requiring all its women to abide by such a superfluous practice for nearly two thousand years. This is precisely the dilemma of the modern Catholic apologist - he must constantly cut off his nose to spite his face, and in the process he distorts the whole image.

(4) Since in Inter Insignores Paul VI does not cover the issue of head coverings in any depth whatsoever, but, to be quite candid, makes unproven assumptions that should not be used in proving his case against ordaining women, we do a disservice to him and to the Church if we attempt to use his cursory statements on head coverings as an official teaching of the Church. Unfortunately, many post-conciliar apologists do this very thing. It is almost as if they are looking for an excuse to get around the clear teachings and warnings in 1 Corinthians 11 and the traditional Church.

In light of Paul VI’s imprecise opinions regarding head coverings in Inter Insignores, we must consider that, besides his own modernistic leanings, Paul VI was surrounded by liberal exegetes of Scripture who, based on the Protestant-based exegetical methodology of Historical Criticism (which our clerics wasted no time enthroning in Catholic academia), were constantly feeding him non-traditional interpretations of Scripture. A good example of how liberals permeated the curia can be gleaned from the events leading up to Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1969. The pope assigned 68 clerics to discuss the issue of contraception, after which they were to offer him their conclusions. Of the 68, only 4 were against contraception. Obviously, the other 64, if they had the authority, would have given women full right to practice artificial birth control. We all know, of course, that when the final decision had to be made Paul VI was guided by the Holy Spirit to make the right one, despite what he may have believed previously or what he was convinced to believe from the 64 dissenters. The tradition was clear: contraception was wrong, and Paul VI could not go against it. Interestingly enough, the tradition is just as clear on head coverings, and it is an issue directly addressed by Scripture and the Fathers but, unfortunately, Paul VI did not write an encyclical on that issue.

Hence, it is quite likely that Paul VI’s cursory statement on head coverings in Inter Insignores was not what he himself originated regarding the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11; rather, it was the product of liberal exegetes who were at that time promulgating such innovative ideas. Not only is this suggested by Paul VI’s direct reference in Inter Insignores to “exegetes” who had conferred with him, but it is also evident if one reads the literature on the issue of head coverings and other related issues during the 1970s, both in Catholic and Protestant camps. Women’s issues were one of the hottest topics of the 1970s, and the liberals were making quite an impact with their new-fangled interpretations of Scripture. The books advocating a reinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 11 and which were advising that head coverings were passé, became the first shots across the bow in this ongoing war between liberals and traditionalists concerning the role of women in the Catholic Church. These interpretations not only went against 2000 years of Catholic tradition but also 2000 years of Old Testament tradition. In Old Testament times, uncovering a woman’s head was seen as a way of humiliating her or punishing her (cf., Numbers 5:12-18, Isaiah 3:16-17, Song of Solomon 5:7). Even in late second millennium BC, a Hebrew woman would never consider entering the Temple without a head covering.

Today, however, in light of all the other signs of a generation who has lost faith in God, liberals claim that such proscriptions of Scripture are based on cultural biases of the times. For the same reason, this is precisely why the Scriptural mandates against homosexuality simply no longer resonate with modernist exegetes. They have dismissed these prohibitions as outdated and archaic remnants from the past.

One of the favorite scriptural verses of liberal exegetes is Galatians 3:28. Whenever the need arises to put a damper on any scriptural passages requiring women to come under certain restrictions or authority, the liberals will invariably cite Galatians 3:28 as their immunity from such mandates. Everything from advancing the cause for women priests, to Eucharistic ministers, to altar girls, to chancellors at diocesan chanceries, heads of parish councils, and many other modern ecclesiastical inventions, have all been based on St. Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28. Unfortunately, not only do these interpretations make St. Paul contradict himself against other passages he wrote, but they totally divorce Galatians 3:28 from its historical and theological context. Galatians 3:28 was never used in Church history the way it is being used today by the modernists in the post-conciliar era. Suffice it to say, Galatians 3:28 is one of the most abused and misunderstood passages in all of Scripture.

But that is a big subject, and we’ll have to save it for next time. Suffice it to say for now, there has hardly been a discussion concerning head coverings in the post-conciliar Church, let alone an official recision of the previous canonical mandates. Annibale Bugnini, the then secretary of the New Congregation for Divine Worship and Vatican envoy, said himself in 1969: “The rule has not been changed. It is a matter of general discipline.” So be it.

End for CFN 9-10-04

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