What constitutes modest dress for young Catholic women?

[seasonsavila777]

I’m 22-years-old and I’m so confused. I want to follow the Catholic moral dress code and I do when I attend Mass, but I just feel exposed in a skirt. I’m a larger woman and skirts just show to much for me. I know Catholic women shouldn’t wear pants but I feel safer in them. Am I immodest?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Why would you think that there is something called The Catholic Dress Code that forbids a woman to wear pants? The Church has made no pronouncements about what women can or cannot, must or should not wear. Modesty is defined this way in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet (CCC 2522).

The Catechism also states:

The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person (CCC 2524).

What this means is that if skirts are too revealing for your body type, you should feel free to wear pants, even to Mass if necessary. What you should not feel is constrained to emulate any one person’s unauthorized pronouncements on what constitutes Catholic modesty.

Recommended reading:

Pure Womanhood by Crystalina Evert