Why I Never Wore A Veil

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

If my 19-year-old self were to look into a crystal ball and see where I was now, she would see someone very different than the woman she was on the path to becoming.

Flash back to 2013, before the Trump administration took office, before the “Me Too” movement gained its current momentum, and right after the Catholic Church selected its first Jesuit Pope. I was a sophomore at a Jesuit, Catholic college who had just gotten into her first, more serious, romantic relationship.

Luke was the epitome of the perfect Catholic man. He was unwavering in his faith, knowledgeable about the Church, and was seeking a romantic relationship with the end goal of marriage, countering the ever-so-dominating “hook-up” culture of my age group at the time. I thought he had chosen to pursue me because he saw in me similar, genuine qualities. However, looking back I think he saw a girl who could fit his mold, one he thought he could change to become a foot soldier in his religiously motivated attack on feminism, a war I knew little about at the time.

It started with the way I dressed. He told me that in order to respect me, I had to start covering my shoulders at Mass. Then it was wearing dresses that covered the whole of my legs. And when I did not abide by these rules, a wave of shame would fall from him onto me as we sat in the pews of the church. It became more comfortable for me to submit to what he wanted than to feel the tension building up behind me as I walked up to receive communion.

Then he started to take me to Latin Masses, a form of the Catholic Mass I had never seen before. Although it was beautiful bearing some of the traditions of the Church I had not seen in my lifetime, I could easily look around and see the kind of woman Luke wanted me to become. These women had every inch of their body covered, while trying to balance six or seven kids. Their husband was usually just attending to the Mass, wearing what you would see most men wear at modern, Novus Ordo Masses. I started to see how it wasn’t the men who had to visibly change to enforce the counter wave of conservatism in the Catholic Church, it was the women.

As I started to attune to these values, letting Luke buy me clothes that he would like to see me wear at Mass, I noticed my own judgements of other woman begin to change. Going to Mass at my university, I would see a girl not covering her shoulders or wearing yoga pants and think less of her. My mind had began to automatically slut shame women who were similar in dress and thinking to me only a short year ago before I had met Luke.  Luke was a key enabler of these judgements, telling me terrible things about women who did not dress what he deemed as “appropriately,” especially in church. And how feminism and the “tantrums,” as he called them, of selfish women were pulling the Church away from God and to secular society. But no matter how far into the relationship I got, part of me still felt differently from Luke.

That is when Luke wanted me to start wearing a veil to Mass. I had seen other women wear lacy, beautiful veils but I had never understood why or pictured myself wearing one. Luke told me that I should want to wear a veil to Mass; that it was an honor for women. But the more I asked him why he wanted me to wear a veil, the more sexist his answer became. As it turns out, he wanted me to wear a veil because my long, blonde hair was a distraction to him and other men during Mass. He wanted me to do this so badly that he urged me to put a napkin on my head in lieu of a veil because I did not own one. To me that napkin wasn’t a crown of honor, it was a symbol of the ways in which my Church chose to perpetuate victim-blaming by suggesting that it was women’s responsibility, not men’s, to control men’s desires.

Even five years ago, under the thumb of Luke’s religiosity and control, I never wore a veil to Mass. It just never felt right for me, personally. It was at this point that started to see the kind of judgement I was putting on others. And for me, wearing a veil would have given me another reason to say I was doing something right and other women were doing something wrong.

There are some women who wear veils to Mass every time they step through the large doors and cross themselves with holy water. There are some women who wear veils only to Latin Mass but follow the modern trend of having their head uncovered when attending the Novus Ordo Mass. And finally, there are women who never veil their head. And the truth is, every choice previously listed is perfectly fine because it is a choice made by each woman for herself. The Church even advocates that women who wear veils should wear them because they want to, not because they are forced to. It is men who crave control and make women feel like they are “less than” that are perpetuating a culture in our Church that oppresses women and blames them for the faults of men. And the reality is that no man or woman has the right to judge what another chooses to wear to Mass.

Now in 2018, as a single, 24-year-old starting her professional career, I go to Masses all over the world as I travel for work and pleasure. I see women wearing veils at both Latin and Novus Ordo Masses. I see women wearing shorter skirts, and long traditional dresses. Women in the pews around me wear sweaters to cover their shoulders, even in the heat of the southern United States where I now live, and some choose to show their shoulders. I see 19-year-old girls coming into Mass in sweatpants or running shorts after studying all night for a college exam. And I no longer silently judge any of these women because the fact is, they are still showing up to worship in a Church that doesn’t afford them the same opportunities as men and continues to hold them to sexist standards. They are still coming to Mass because of their faith and love of our Lord, Jesus Christ. They are showing up to witness and receive the miracle of the Eucharist and participate in the Communion of Saints regardless of what men will think of them, which shows a truly admirable amount of faith in God.

I see the things that have happened in the past five years, in our world and our Church community. I wonder if the future for women is bright with opportunity after women around the world stood up to say “Me Too” and shared stories of sexual violence and oppression. I wonder if the future for women is dim considering the United States elected a president who openly admitted to sexually assaulting women. But when I look backwards at myself five years ago, I shudder to think that had I given into wearing a napkin on my head against my will, stayed with Luke and allowed him to control me, maybe I would have continued to shame other women both more liberal or conservative than me. Maybe I would have voted for Donald Trump, not caring about his attitudes and disrespect towards women. Maybe I would have not posted a “Me Too” status on Facebook last fall.

Now when I go to Latin Mass, I see the women that shocked me the first time I walked in. They are my age with several children, covered from head to toe, and I respect them for their choices and their devotion. I also recognize that a woman walking into a Novus Ordo Mass wearing shorts and a tank top, who has not given marriage or children a thought yet, can still be as devoted as the other woman to her faith. Our faith in the Catholic Church is not and should not be measured by which of the rigid roles society gives us to fill as women – the pure and virtuous mother, the immoral seductress, or anything in between. Our faith and love of Jesus Christ lives in our hearts, a part of ourselves that grows as we begin to empower the women around us.