Women wearing veils when visiting the Pope

Factual Questions
1

Some of the video footage of President Bush’s visit with Pope John Paul II show he and his wife sitting on either side of the Pope. Laura Bush is wearing a traditional-looking black veil on her head.

As a Vatican II kid, the girls at my school didn’t have to wear veils when they went to Mass after the mid 1970s.

Now the only women wearing veils in church are the very old, girls making their First Communion, or really conservative Catholics.

But does anyone know if there is another protocol for women in private audiences with the Pope as the Bushes had?

2

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Audience

toward the bottom of the page it states the wardrobe for men and women visiting with the pope. the men seemed to have moved on to business suits. i guess most of the women are holding on to the tradition.

i’m thinking jpii may not have been the stickler some popes may have been regarding this.

3

Thanks, and I should have known that it’s a mantilla, not a veil.