Who would have guessed that one visit to the Vatican could turn the First Lady into a nun?Men and women both are expected to dress in a conservative fashion when meeting His Holiness. Conservative black, conservative covering of the arms, conservative covering of the knees for the ladies, like a nun who would never consider any other color than black.
The severe hair-do takes us back to the old days, when we wondered if the good Sisters had any hair on their heads, underneath those veils. We learned, after Vatican II, that the old girls didn't shave their heads or anything so drastic, but they did keep it short and avoided trends. No time for a nun to fuss with her hair, not when there's poor to be served.
After Vatican II, lay women didn't have to cover their hair anymore. The clergy figured out that the notion, still so popular in repressive Muslim countries, didn't make sense in a modern world. That was for the laity. Nuns continued to wear a veil, although the wimple went the way of the dinosaur and the veil itself become a perky little bonnet sort of thing.
Catholics have photographic prove that Michelle Obama has left her Baptist roots behind and become one of us, a Catholic, a super-Catholic, a Sister.
Why else would she have donned what looks for all the world like a nun's habit?
