Are nuns in France allowed to wear head coverings?
In Roman Catholicism, a nun is a female monastic who has taken solemn vows (the male equivalent is a “monk”). Nuns are cloistered to the degree established by the rule of the religious institution they enter. In the Roman Catholic tradition, there are a number of different orders of nuns each with its own charism or special character. In general, when a woman enters a convent she first undergoes an initial period of testing the life, known as postulancy, for a period of six months to a year. If she, and the order, determine that she may have a vocation to the life, she receives the habit of the order (usually with some modification to distinguish her from professed nuns) and undertakes the novitiate, a period (that lasts one to two years) of living the life of a nun without yet taking vows. Upon completion of this period she may take her initial, temporary vows. Temporary vows last one to three years, typically, and will be professed for not less than three years and not more than six.
