Why do women cover their heads?

Because St. Paul instructed them to, and the Catholic Church preserved that instruction for nineteen centuries.

In 1 Corinthians 11, St. Paul writes that a woman should cover her head when praying — not as a sign of inferiority, but as a sign that she stands in the presence of “glory.” In the same passage he says that man is the image and glory of God, and woman is the glory of man. Glory veils itself before the higher glory of the Lord. The chapel veil is therefore a sign of dignity, not subjection — the same dignity by which sacred vessels are veiled when they are not in use.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law required it. The 1983 Code dropped the requirement, but did not forbid the practice. In TLM communities, head covering remains common because the deeper logic still holds: when a woman approaches the altar where God Himself becomes substantially present, she covers herself in reverence, the same way she would dress with care for any sacred occasion.

Mantillas and chapel veils are most common, but a hat or scarf serves as well. The covering is not magic; it is a sign. It tells the wearer, and everyone watching, that something extraordinary is about to happen on the altar — and that even the way one’s hair is arranged is brought into the orbit of the sacred.

No one is judged for not wearing one. Many do, anyway, because it makes their interior posture visible.

Go deeper → Sacred Vestments: Symbolism and History