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by Robert Sungenis

In this series of articles, I will be investigating the issues surrounding a woman’s role in the church, family and society. In the last series of my articles CFN published on biblical interpretation, we touched upon one aspect of the role of women as we discovered that the liberals of Catholic biblical scholarship have tried to convince the world that St. Paul’s mandates regarding women are his own culturally biased opinions and thus not applicable to today’s modern world. Now we are going to press deeper into the matter. In the first few articles of this present series, we will be investigating the matter of head coverings, and later we will deal with the matter of submission.

In 1 Corinthians 11:6, 7, 10, St. Paul writes: “For if a woman be not covered, let her be shorn. But if it be a shame to a woman to be shorn or made bald, let her cover her head. The man indeed ought not to cover his head: because he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man...Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels” (Douay-Rheims).

The big question for today’s modern culture is: does this Scriptural mandate apply to us? The answer that most of the prelates and parishioners of the post-conciliar church give is: “No, women are not required to wear veils today. That is an antiquated practice of the past, and today’s church has officially declared that women are no longer bound to it.”

Is any of this true? No, not one word of it, and in this series of articles I will bring forth the patristic, canonical, biblical and historical evidence to prove how badly they have been deceived. Catholic women should be wearing veils today as they did for over 1900 years at anytime they visited the inside of a Catholic church. I remember that, when I was in grade school in the early 1960s the obligation for women and girls to wear veils was so ingrained in their thinking that, if perchance one forgot their veil or hat, they would put a Kleenex on their head before they would dare set foot in the church. For some odd reason, without any official declaration from the magisterium, that practice has been virtually obliterated from the face of the earth, except, of course, among more traditionally-minded Catholic women (but even then, there are a significant number of Latin-mass women who do not wear veils, and I hope to convince them otherwise).

First, allow me to reveal why the subject of veils is so important, and why it is not “dreadful legalism,” “Phariseeism,” “fundamentalism,” and being too “scrupulous,”as the Vice-President of EWTN Theology, Colin Donovan, recently told me in an email.

If we could point to one modern innovation that has had the most damaging effect in deteriorating our present society, it is the dramatic change in the role of women: they have left wifely roles to vie as business executives; from deacon’s wives to wanna-be priests; from factory workers to fighting on the front lines; from wives in submission to those pressing for equal authority; from child-bearers to child killers. In the face of all this upheaval are Scripture’s commands, followed by a litany of ecclesiastical pronouncements for over 1900 years, that a woman is to be in subjection to her husband; that her primary duty is to raise children; and have a meek and quiet spirit. The opposite, of course, occurs when women begin to rule in the church, family and society, as the prophet Isaiah lamented in the days of Israel’s apostasy: “As for my people...women have ruled over them” (Is 3:12).

From the verses of 1 Corinthians 11:6-10 recorded above, notice that St. Paul takes great pains to get the point across about the necessity for women to wear head coverings. I did not record all the verses, but St. Paul actually takes 16 verses to explain the issue of head coverings to the Corinthians, and he does so in a context saturated with the command for a woman to be in submission to the man (1 Cor 11:1-5, 11-16). If it was such an “insignificant” issue (as Mr. Donovan assured me it was), why did St. Paul spill so much ink on the topic?

Well, let’s look at the words in 1 Cor 11:10 once again: “Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels.”

First, let me clear up any confusion that might be caused by the word “power.” The word “power” was a popular Elizabethean word for “authority.” The Greek word behind both the Douay-Rheims’ and the King James’ translation is exousia, which refers to the authority that one individual or entity has over another. (Incidentally, St. Paul, being a Hebrew scholar, was most likely aware that the Hebrew root for veil, “radid” (e.g., Is 3:23), is the same Hebrew root for “subjection,” although St. Paul does not actually refer to the word “veil” in 1 Cor 11). In other words, the veil is a symbol of authority. But according to the context of 1 Cor 11, it is not a symbol of a woman’s authority, but of the husband’s authority over her, which is the reason the veil is placed on her head (as opposed to on her heart), to show that she is completely “under” his authority. This is easy to understand, since the New Testament is replete with information that the woman is to be subject to the man’s authority (cf., 1 Cor 14:34-35; 1 Tim 2:11-15; Col. 3:18; Eph 5:22-33; 1 Peter 3:1-5).

Yet 1 Cor 11:10 adds that the woman should wear a covering not only for the sake of the man, but also “because of the angels.” To what might this refer? The fact is, although 1 Cor 11:1-16 is not limited to a woman’s presence in the church,¹ angels are present in the sanctuary with the consecrated host, and especially during Mass when angles bring the eucharistic sacrifice to God’s altar in heaven (as we say in the canon: “may your angels bring this sacrifice to your altar in heaven”). In turn, the angels have a keen eye on the entire proceedings at Mass, including how the parishioners are conducting themselves. As St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 4:9, “we are made...a spectacle to angels,” and in Eph. 3:10: “to me...to enlighten all men, that they may see...the mystery...made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenlies.” Or as St. Peter says in 1 Peter 1:12: “things which are now declared to you...in which the angels desire to look.” St. John Chrysostom, chiding the misbehaving parishioners of his day, once said, “Know you not that you are standing in company with angels? with them you chant, with them sing hymns, and do you stand laughing? Is it not wonderful that a thunderbolt is not launched...For such behavior might well be visited with the thunderbolt” (Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 24).

The angels are very sensitive regarding how “coverings” demonstrate that one is under authority, since they, in the presence of God, always cover themselves. God is uncovered, but the angels are covered (Isaiah 6:2). So too, says the Holy Spirit through St. Paul, a woman is to be veiled in the presence of her husband, for he is the image of God. So much was this mentality a part of divinely inspired teaching that St. Peter told the Catholic women of his day: “women...being in subjection to their own husbands: As Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him ‘lord’” (1 Peter 3:5-6), which, because Sarah is cited as a precedent, also tells us that the mandates from the Old Testament carry into the New, and that the principle of wifely subjection is perpetual, as St. Paul assures us by his reference to the “the law” in 1 Cor 14:34-35. Imagine what a fit Bella Abzug, Betty Freidan and Faye Waddleton would have if we told them to call their husbands “lord”!

Moreover, considering the onus that the New Testament puts on women for the spiritual predicament left to the human race after Eve’s sin (as St. Paul specifies in 1 Tim 2:14: “And Adam was not seduced; but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression”), it would be a wise thing for women not to offend the angels, since, if not, they will only compound their punishment.

We get a glimpse of how the angels communicate their concerns to God in the account of Jesus’ teaching on little children. He says: “See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” As you might know, we draw our Catholic teaching about Guardian Angels from passages like this. Note that Jesus shows the progression from “despising” a child to the angels who “see the face” of the Father in heaven. This tells us that the angel’s special mission is to report to the Father when one of these children is harmed. If the angels report it, it must be serious, and God will dispense His wrath accordingly upon the perpetrator; which is why Jesus also says, “...it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.” In other words, it is better to suffering a horrible death than to face the eternal wrath of God. Imagine the terrible punishment being suffered by the late Fr. Goeghen from Boston, and the rest of the pedophile bishops and priests, for “despising one of these little ones.”

The necessary action of reporting the sin to God so that His wrath can be dispensed (which is similar to an imprecatory prayer, e.g., Psalm 37; Apoc 6:9-10) is noted also in the immediately following parable about the unforgiving servant. According to Mt 18:31, his unforgiving attitude results in: “his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came, and told their lord all that was done,” from which information the lord “being angry, delivered him to the torturers.” Once told of the injustice, the lord follows swiftly with punishment.

The moral of the story is this: the angels are watching us very intensely. They report to God what we are doing. Not that God does not already know what we do: rather, He is especially moved to action when His faithful ones cry out to Him for vengeance. So if a woman does not want an angel to give a bad report to God of her behavior, she best put a veil on her head. If women want their prayers heard and answered, they should make sure they wear veils, otherwise their prayers will be hindered just as a husband’s prayers are hindered for not honoring his wife (cf., 1 Cor 11:5: “But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered disgraces her head”; 1 Peter 3:7: “giving honor to the female as to the weaker vessel and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered”).

Women, according to St. Paul, are in enough trouble already due to Eve’s sin (1 Tim 2:14); they surely don’t want to compound their judgment by repeating Eve’s sin, which was essentially the usurping of Adam’s authority, and the very reason she is told in Genesis 3:16 that her plight will be: “your desire will be to rule over your husband, but he shall rule over you.”(Stay tuned to CFN’s future installments for the Hebrew grammatical exegesis of this passage and why we can infer the word “rule” in the first clause to match the second clause).

Unfortunately, modernists have sold today’s women the proverbial swamp land in Florida. Women have been convinced that they should be “liberated,” that they should have equal authority with the man; that they should not be straddled with caring for children. But St. Paul says that the raising of children is the one sure remedy available to women to rectify the judgment from Eve’s sin, as he says in 1 Tim 2:14-15: “And Adam was not seduced; but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through child bearing; if she continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.” But, of course, today’s women are being told exactly the opposite of these truths, much of it coming from the Catholic prelature. They are told that they have the right and privilege to curtail their responsibilities to rear children (e.g., working outside the home, contraception, abortion, etc) and in doing so, they are bringing upon themselves the wrath of God, not only in this life, but the next.

So, women, if you want to avoid God’s wrath, wear a veil. It is the surest sign to God and the angels that you don’t want to repeat Eve’s sin. The blessings that will flow to you, your children, and many future generations will be beyond your imagination. God always blesses obedience. In fact, I would venture to say that, if women wore veils today, our whole society would be turned around. As the old saying goes, the one who rocks the cradle, rules the world.

Now that we have the Scriptural foundation secured, many readers are probably wondering what the popes and canon law have said on this issue. We will begin that study in the next issue of CFN, which will be quite lengthy. For now, allow me to give the precedent established by the Fathers of the Church, which they stated unanimously, on both the wearing of veils and a woman’s requirement to be in submission to her husband. In the present CFN installment, we only have room for a few quotes on veil wearing. In the next issue we will start with the patristic quotes on submission:

On Wearing Veils:

Clement of Alexandria: “For this is the wish of the Word, since it is becoming for her to pray veiled. They say that the wife of Aeneas, through excess of propriety, did not, even in her terror at the capture of Troy, uncover herself; but, though fleeing from the conflagration, remained veiled”(The Instructor, Book III, Ch. XI)

Augustine: “It is not as though one part of humanity belongs to God as its author and another to darkness, as some claim. Rather the part that has the power of ruling and the part that is ruled are both from God. Thus the apostle says, ‘A man certainly should not cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but a woman is the glory of man” (Against the Manichaeans, 2, 26, 40)

“We ought not therefore so to understand that man is made in the image of the supreme Trinity, that is, in the image of God, as that the same image should be understood to be in three human beings; especially when the apostle says that the man is the image of God, and on that account removes the covering from his head, which he warns the woman to use, speaking thus: ‘For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man.’ What then shall we say to this? If the woman fills up the image of the trinity after the measure of her own person, why is the man still called that image after she has been taken out of his side? Or if even one person of a human being out of three can be called the image of God, as each person also is God in the supreme Trinity itself, why is the woman also not the image of God? For she is instructed for this very reason to cover her head, which be is forbidden to do because he is the image of God....”

“But because too great a progression towards inferior things is dangerous to that rational cognition that is conversant with things corporeal and temporal; this ought to have power on its head, which the covering indicates, by which it is signified that it ought to be restrained. For a holy and pious meaning is pleasing to the holy angels. For God sees not after the way of time, neither does anything new take place in His vision and knowledge, when anything is done in time and transitorily, after the way in which such things affect the senses, whether the carnal senses of animals and men, or even the heavenly senses of the angels” (On the Trinity, Bk XII, Ch 7).

Ambrosiaster: “The veil signifies power, and the angels are bishops” (Commentary on Paul’s Epistles, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 81:122).

“This was the church’s tradition, but since the Corinthians were ignoring it, Paul made his appeal to nature.” (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 81:124).

Ambrose: [On 1 Cor 11:14-16]: One act is becoming to a man, another to a woman...How unsightly it is for a man to act like a woman!” (Letter to Layman, 78; FC 26:436).

Chrysostom: “Being covered is a mark of subjection and authority. It induces the woman to be humble and preserve her virtue, for the virtue and honor of the governed is to dwell in obedience” (Homilies on First Corinthians, 26, 5).

“For this cause He left it to nature to provide her with a covering, that even of it she might learn this lesson and veil herself.” (Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XIV, verse 6).

“A woman does not acquire a man’s dignity by having her head uncovered but rather loses her own. Her shame and reproach thus derive from her desire to be like a man as well as from her actions” (Homilies on First Corinthians, 25, 4).

“No governor should come before the king without the symbols of his office. Such a person would never dare to approach the royal throne without his military girdle and cloak, and in the same way, a man who approaches the throne of God should wear the symbols of his office, which in this case is represented by having one’s head uncovered” (Homilies on First Corinthians 26, 4).

“To oppose this teaching is contentiousness, which is irrational. The Corinthians might object, but if they do so, they are going against the practice of the universal church.” (On 1 Cor 11:14-16; Homilies on First Corinthians, 26, 5).

Jerome: “It is usual in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria for virgins and widows who have vowed themselves to God and have renounced the world and have trodden under foot its pleasures, to ask the mothers of their communities to cut their hair; not that afterwards they go about with heads uncovered in defiance of the apostles command” (Letter CXLVII:5).

Tertullian: “To her, then, to whom it is equally unbecoming to be shaven or shorn, it is equally becoming to be covered.” (On the Veiling of Virgins, Chap VII)

“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.” (On The Veiling Of Virgins 1).

“What is the meaning of the expression ‘every woman’ except women of every age, every rank and every circumstance? No one is excepted.” (On Prayer, 22, 4, on 1 Cor 11:5)

“It is on account of the angels, he says, that the woman’s head is to be covered, because the angels revolted from God on account of the daughters of men” (On Prayer, 22, 5).

“Thus he says concerning the veiling of women: ‘Does not nature teach you this?’ Again, in saying in his letter to the Romans that the Gentiles do by nature what the law prescribes, he hints at the existence of natural law and a nature founded on law” (The Chaplet 6, 1; FC 40:242).

Pope Linus: Elected in 67 A.D. as the second Pope of the Catholic Church, he died in 76 A.D. and is buried near the tomb of St. Peter. The Liber Pontificalis states that “Pope Linus forbade women to enter a church with uncovered heads.”

End for CFN

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Image courtesy the Art Renwal Center (www.artrenewal.org)
Modestie ~ William Bouguereau