R. Sungenis: Again, the Magisterium makes no such argument regarding the veiling of women. Modesty has little to do with head coverings, since the head is an object that does not need to be covered up for sexual reasons, but only for reasons of authority, as 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 makes clear. The 1917 Code also recognized the distinction between "head coverings" and "modesty" when it placed an "and" between the two ("...women, however, shall have a covered head and be modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord. (Canon 1262, §2)."

Mr. Donovan: Liturgical and Marital Theology: One might also ask, isn't the wearing of a head-covering the expression of theological subordination to God, and natural subordination of wives to their husbands? This is certainly true. All human beings are subordinate (ordered under and to) God by both grace and nature. Also, in the natural order the right ordering of the family requires the headship of the husband. Why would the Church drop such a useful sign? I can think of three reasons.

R. Sungenis: Again, Mr. Donovan is assuming that because a specific command for head covering does not appear in the 1983 Code this means that the Church has "drop[ed]" the sign. It does not. In fact, we can add a little history concerning this issue to reinforce the point that veil covering is still part of church rubrics, albeit it has fallen into general disuse because parishioners are not being given correct information.

For example, although anecdotal, it is reported that during the Second Vatican Council, journalists asked Cardinal Annibale Bugnini (pronounced: Bunini) whether women would still have to wear head coverings. He replied that the matter was not a topic of debate at the Council. For some reason, the journalists interpreted him to say, whether inadvertently or deliberately, that women would not have to wear veils, and unfortunately, this misinformation was reported all over the world. That, coupled with the fact that the 1960s was a decade of social revolution that entertained many heretofore unheard of ideas and practices in the Church, many women stopped wearing veils, even though there was no specific mandate from the Church to do so.

Since the question of veils still lingered in the minds of many faithful Catholics who knew it was a 2000-year old tradition, Pope Paul VI addressed the issue through one of his emissaries in mid-1969. An article in The Atlanta Journal of June 21, 1969, titled "Women Required to Cover Head, Vatican Insists," states: "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.'"

Then in 1975, Paul VI, in addressing the matter of whether women could be ordained to the priesthood, made a brief mention of head coverings in his letter titled Inter Insignores. I will underline the parts that are relevant to our topic. He 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 regarding the head covering appears to demote its status and importance in current Church practice, one cannot make such a conclusion 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 is making a definitive decision for the Church, is the issue of ordaining women priests, not head coverings. The issue of head coverings is added only to serve as evidence that St. Paul was not a misogynist or had "prejudices against women." Thus, Paul VI is not making a definitive decision on whether women should, or should not, wear head coverings. The rule of interpreting magisterial documents is: unless the magisterium is addressing a specific topic, and intends on giving a definitive decision on that topic, than that topic is not being decided upon. Thus, no one can use Inter Insignores to teach that the Catholic Church no longer requires head coverings for women. He may use it to show what Paul VI's thinking may have been at the time, but not as an official teaching of the Church. No pope would want to be held to such rigorous use of his words.

(2) Regarding the mind of the pope, it is obvious that Paul VI does not want to have his words regarding head coverings to be 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," Paul VI is thus making a personal judgment of the origin of head coverings which, in fact, is quite dubious, since there is little evidence to support such an assertion, and, the fact that the wearing of head coverings was practiced for the 1975 years prior to Paul VI's letter means that the remaining popes and councils of the Church did not see it as merely a "custom of the period" that was not to continue in the remaining 19 centuries of Church practice. In any case, the 1983 Code of Canon Law has stated quite clearly that such "customs" can attain the "force of law" if they have been practiced for a sufficient amount of time (Canons 23-28), and are impervious to canonical decisions, let alone letters from a pope who is not addressing the issue in the main.

(3) This leads us to make an analysis of Paul VI's statement that "such requirements no longer have a normative value." As we see in #2 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 the use of the word "probably," his conclusion is based on an unproven or faulty premise, and therefore the conclusion is 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 the Church previous to Paul VI understood head coverings to have "normative value" by the mere fact that the Church continued the practice of requiring women to wear a veil, then the tradition and the custom have been established, and Paul VI certainly would not want to be interpreted as making an official Church teaching against that tradition. Otherwise, to promulgate the idea that, after the first century, head coverings have no "normative value" would mean that the Church for over 1900 years was mistaken in both not seeing the practice as a mere first century aberration and requiring all its women to abide by such a superfluous practice.

(4) Lastly, since in Inter Insignores Paul VI does not cover the issue of head coverings in any depth whatsoever but merely makes unproven assumptions that are not only not germane to his case against ordaining women but would need much more study in order to come to a firm conclusion, we do a disservice to him and to the Church if we attempt to use his cursory statements as an official teaching of the Church against head coverings.

We must also remember that Paul VI was surrounded by liberal exegetes of Scripture who, based on the methodology of historical criticism they enthroned from liberal Protestants, were constantly feeding him modernistic interpretations of Scripture. It is quite likely that Paul VI's cursory statements on head coverings was not what he himself came to believe but what the current liberal establishment of clerics were promulgating at the time. This is quite evident if one reads the literature on this issue and other related issues, both in Catholic and Protestant camps, during the 1970s. 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 - interpretations that not only went against 2000 years of Catholic tradition but also 2000 years of Old Testament tradition.

For example, 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). A Hebrew woman would never consider entering the Temple without a head covering. But today, in light of all the other signs of a generation who has lost faith in God, the liberals do the same thing with Scripture's teaching on homosexuality, and many other social and cultural issues, claiming that the proscriptions of the New Testament are based on cultural biases of the first century. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A good example of how liberals permeated the curia can be gleaned from the events leading up to the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Paul VI asked 68 qualified clerics to discuss the issue and offer him their conclusions. Of the 68, only 4 were against contraception. The other 64, if they had the chance, would have allowed women 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 by the 64 dissenters.

Mr. Donovan: First, as explained above, signs are cultural. When the culture no longer sees the significance the sign loses its meaning, except to those who have retained the understanding of it. Certainly, the practice of an important sign can re-introduce it into a culture, whether of the Church or society as a whole. And, some signs the Church never changes, can't change, such as the sacramental signs. In the Orient rice is not used instead of wheat in the Eucharist, for example, even though rice is the main staple there. Thus, there is an argument in favor of maintaining this sign as conveying a truth about supernatural and natural hierarchy. However, why not maintain all the distinctions of men and women mentioned in canon 1262?

The answer to that question is my second reason - these external signs would be an obstacle for many people of our time to accepting the truth. A sign can become a counter-witness, by conveying a meaning which in current circumstances would generally be read in a way which misrepresents Church teaching. While the truths intended by these signs remain valid, properly understood and in union with other truths, they would have the net effect of conveying only a partial truth about women and men. In the contemporary world, in which the equality of men and women as persons is emphasized, this is a legitimate concern. As St. Paul teaches us in 1 Cor. 8, we must not use our Christian freedom to hinder souls. Since there is no intrinsic moral obligation to these practices, they can be set aside, as the Church has done.

R. Sungenis: Again, Mr. Donovan assumes the Church has "set aside" the teaching on veil coverings, but one will search in vain for even one official and binding teaching on this subject. As the 1983 Code stated, unless the Church specifically sets aside a practice, then we cannot "presume" that it is set aside. Arguments from silence will simply not prove anything for Mr. Donovan.

Second, Mr. Donovan's reasoning is that "In the contemporary world, in which the equality of men and women as persons is emphasized, this is a legitimate concern." He is trying to drive a wedge between today's world and the Church of Tradition, implying that, because the Church of Tradition continued the practice of head covering, then it was neither providing women "equality" with men nor treating them as "persons." This is a serious indictment against the Church. Mr. Donovan thinks that he can stand against 1900+ years of Church tradition and judge them as uniformed and insensitive to women simply because they required her, under biblical mandate, to put a covering on her head. The truth is that Mr. Donovan has obviously imbibed the spirit of the times and it is that spirit which is influencing how he interprets both Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. All three become a wax nose one can mold in any shape one wishes, as long as it placates the social mores and cultural practices of the day. Mr. Donovan couldn't be more wrong. It was the traditional Church which saw in women their true and dignified role before God. It was by recognizing their submission to man that they truly became women of God. According to St Paul, women honor themselves, their husbands and God by submitting to the authorities placed over them, and the veil on her head symbolized that submission.

Unfortunately, many of today's women no longer want to submit. They want to rule, which is precisely the reason Paul VI, in Inter Insignores, and John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, had to tell women, twice, that they could not be ordained and thus could not rule in the Church. But they are so emboldened that they are still trying to circumvent these ecclesiastical mandates. Of course, they give the same arguments that Mr. Donovan gives for not wearing head coverings - we are denying them "equality" with men and are not treating them as "persons."

Mr. Donovan: This brings me to my third reason, which explains why these signs could lead to only a partial understanding of Church teaching in our day. The dropping of this obligation, I suspect, comes from a deliberate desire to promote the values of the liturgical renewal and the theological and anthropological personalism of the Second Vatican Council. The liturgical renewal sought to give to the laity their rightful place as "royal priests," sacramental signs of their membership in the Body of Christ through baptism - the ministerial priest being the sacramental sign of Christ the Head. By the active participation of the laity a liturgical, as opposed to a purely personal, piety is fostered, in which the Mystical Christ, Head and members, publicly worship the Father as one. This serves as a sign to the world of Christ's salvific work and continuing presence in the world, both in the Eucharist and in the Church. Within that liturgical, sacramental perspective, the distinction between male in female does not apply, since in baptism "there is no longer male or female" (Gal. 3:28). The distinction to be emphasized in the liturgy is not the distinction between men and women, husbands and wives, but the distinction between the Head and the members of Christ's Body, that is, the supernatural ordering of the Mystical Body which comes about through Holy Orders and Baptism. In a similar way, in all areas of the Church's life not requiring Holy Orders, men and women today participate equally as baptized persons. The sole exception is installation in ministry, what used to be called minor orders (lector and acolyte), which being closely associated to Major Orders is also reserved to men.

R. Sungenis: Since, by Mr. Donovan's own admission, the above paragraph is his own opinion (since he is not citing an official statement from the Church), then we can use it to see where his mind is in regards to the Church of today. This is important, since Mr. Donovan is Vice-President of Theology at EWTN, and is the person assigned by EWTN to judge the teaching of all those who teach for EWTN. If Mr. Donovan believes a certain person is not teaching something correctly, it is he who warns the person and who recommends dismissal if the person does not capitulate. Obviously, his opinions have a great effect on how he judges important issues. That being the case, if the above is any indication of how Mr. Donovan thinks out this issues, then EWTN has certainly seen better days. It is no wonder that we have seen certain questionable teachings on EWTN, especially since Mother Angelica has left.

First, let me deal with Mr. Donovan's appeal to Galatians 3:28, which he uses as the basis for his opinions on what he envisions as the "new priesthood" of the post-conciliar era. If you are not familiar with the literature in liberal circles on this topic, allow me to inform you that Galatians 3:28 is one of their favorite verses in seeking to advance the cause of women priests, eucharistic ministers, altar girls, chancellors at chanceries, heads of parish councils, and many other modern ecclesiastical inventions. Suffice it to say, Galatians 3:28 is one of the most abused and misunderstood passages in all of Scripture. Those who apply it to ecclesiastical roles and issues are simply misconstruing the verse. Galatians 3:28 was never used in Church history the way it is being used today by the modernists in the post-conciliar era. Let's look at the verse and some of the surrounding context:

26 For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendant, heirs according to the promise. (NAB)

Based on verse 28, Mr. Donovan is arguing that, because St. Paul says "there is not male and female," this means the distinctions between the sexes have been broken down in areas of social, cultural and ecclesiastical context. The reasoning is, if there is little or no distinction between the sexes, then we cannot base functionary roles on sex (at least to some degree, since Mr. Donovan admits above that women, because they are female, still cannot be ordained priests). But apparently Mr. Donovan sees enough distinction between the sexes in Galatians 3:28 in order to use it as a basis for advancing opportunities for women that they did not have previously. For example, Mr. Donovan sees Galatians 3:28 as spawning a "liturgical renewal and...theological and anthropological personalism of the Second Vatican Council," that is, women, even though they cannot be priests and confect the Eucharist, can now participate in "priestly activities," and I'm sure Mr. Donovan would fill in the latter category with things such as female eucharistic ministers, altar girls and altar women, authoritative roles in the chancery, university and seminary, and a whole host of authoritative/ecclesiastical functions that women in the Catholic Church never had.

The problem with Mr. Donovan's view of Galatians 3:28 is that it doesn't support any of the things he is advocating. First, if Galatians 3:28 is the watershed verse Mr. Donovan claims it to be, why didn't St. Paul give it the same interpretation Mr. Donovan is giving it? For that matter, why didn't the Church for over 1900+ years give it Mr. Donovan's interpretation? Galatians was one of St. Paul's first epistles, coming even before 1 Corinthians (the passage at issue). Mr. Donovan would have us believe that St. Paul writes about the freedom of women in Galatians 3:28, yet is this not the same Paul who writes that women should have their head covered to show they are under the authority of men, and because of the angels (1 Cor 11:3-16)? Is this not the same Paul who told women to keep quiet at Mass, and if they had any questions, they should ask their husbands at home, and stated that this was a "command of the Lord" (1 Cor 14:34-35)? Is this not the same Paul who, in a later epistle, told women to be in submission to the man because Adam was "formed first" and "Eve was in the transgression" (1 Tim 2:11-14)? So where does Mr. Donovan come off in seeing a whole new vista of female prerogatives in liturgy and ecclesiastics based on Galatians 3:28?

But not only that, Mr. Donovan has misinterpreted Galatians 3:28 itself. He has taken the passage out of context and consequently made wrong conclusions. The context of Galatians 3 is concerned about one thing - salvation. As the context shows, since Christ has come, all men have the ability to be free from the law which bound them in sin (Gal. 3:10-25). Because faith replaced law, we, the whole human race, can be free of the law's condemnation, since baptism makes all of us sons of God rather than cursed orphans (Gal. 3:26-27). Thus, in that salvation context, a context dealing with grace versus law (which is a context that permeates St. Paul's teaching in the NT), Paul then says in verse 28: "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for we are all one in Christ." In other words, as far as salvation is concerned, God is no respecter of persons (cf., Romans 2:9-10). Whether you are a Jew, Greek, slave, freeman, male or female, you all have the opportunity to be saved and become one in Christ, for the law which separated you has been vanquished. Paul is not making any grandiose and extrapolated conclusions about the ecclesiastical function of women in Future Church. Instead, when he continues his discussion in Galatians 4, he goes right back to the "grace versus law" theme with which he started the context as far back as Galatians 2:1.

Why do liberals, then, try to use Galatians 3:28 to promote their cause? Because it is the only verse in the New Testament that even remotely gives them a shot at convincing the unlearned of their liberal agenda for women. Every other statement Paul writes in the NT concerning women makes a concerted effort to limit their functionary role in the Church. That is why you never see liberals quoting from 1 Cor 11, 14, 1Tim 2, Tit 2, 1 Peter 5, unless, of course, they are trying to argue that those verses "cannot be applied to women today because they are too strict." But Galatians 3:28 is their baby, since, a cursory reading by people who don't know how to exegete Scripture will invariably produce the conclusion that St. Paul was exalting women to heights never before seen in the Church. They will also convince them that the Church of 1900+ years ago must have been asleep at the switch not to see these wonderful new truths that liberal exegetes have been able to glean from Scripture.

Conversely, Mr. Donovan assures his readers that his opinions of women in ministry today are supported by the "the liturgical renewal and the theological and anthropological personalism of the Second Vatican Council." If so, then I suggest Mr. Donovan show us where Vatican II exegeted Galatians 3:28 in the way he is proposing above. Allow me to help speed the process along. Not only does Vatican II not subscribe to Mr. Donovan's innovative exegesis of Galatians 3:28, it doesn't even mention the verse once in its entire sixteen documents, even in the footnotes. The book of Galatians is mentioned 17 times in Vatican II's documents (3x in Ad Gentes, 1x in Dei Verbum, 1x in Apostolicam Actuositatem, 6x in Presbyterorum Ordinis, 3x in Gaudium et Spes, 2x in Evangelica Testifactio, and 1x in Perfectae Caritatis) but none are quoting or concerning Galatians 3:28. In fact, the very document that we might expect to see Galatians 3:28 is Guadium et Spes, since it has sections with such titles as "The Dignity of the Human Person" and "The Role of the Church in the Modern World."

Mr. Donovan might also be surprised to find out that Vatican II mentions nothing about changing the functionary role of women in the Church. It mentions nothing about female eucharistic ministers or altar girls or altar women or any of the dozens of ecclesiastical and authoritative roles that liberals have seen fit to give women today based on the idea that Galatians 3:28 promotes such advancement. There are, in effect, only two places where the role of women is even addressed in Vatican II documents. One appears in Sacramentali Communione regarding rules of the Sacred Liturgy. It states that: "The traditional liturgical norms of the Church prohibit women (young girls, married women, religious) from serving the priest at the altar, even in women's chapels, houses, convents, schools and institutes." As we see, the only thing they are allowed to do is "proclaim the Scripture readings," "offer the intentions for prayer," "lead the congregation singing; play the organ," "give explanatory comments," "receiving the faithful at the door." That's it. There is no watershed of "liturgical renewal and the theological and anthropological personalism" that Mr. Donovan sees in Galatians 3:28. Yet we find women today acting like priests distributing communion, parading on the altar, and a host of other such activities in direct defiance of Vatican II.

The other mention of women in Vatican II appears in Gaudium et Spes in the sentence: "At present women are involved in nearly all spheres of life: they ought to be permitted to play their part fully according to their own particular nature. It is up to everyone to see to it that woman's specific and necessary participation in cultural life be acknowledge and fostered." (Sec. 3, 60). Of course, no one is against having women "play their part fully according to their own particular nature." That is precisely what we are arguing in this critique. But since Mr. Donovan interprets Galatians 3:28 in his own particular way, he obviously has a different idea of what women's "own particular nature" is. Unfortunately, Vatican II, which was often ambiguous in its statements, is likewise ambiguous here, for it doesn't go any further than the two sentences it gives in Gaudium et Spes. This, of course, is fodder for the liberals, since they have been twisting Vatican II's words for the last 40 years - making it say things that the Holy Spirit never said or intended.

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