The thread is closed now, but I had to share a few comments:

1. My TBM mother coming along to mass with us when she came for a visit and our lad was rostered on as an altar server - my DH was away on an Army ex, so I went to church in his place that day. She was gobsmacked that not only were women assisting the priest in administering the sacrament (I am not a caflick, so may not have the terminology correct), but many of them were wearing pants. Tidy respectable pants, but pants none-the-less.

2. On the other hand. Myself and a female buddy visited Vatican city, queued up for ages, got to the front, and got told we could not get in wearing shorts. Pants were OK, but not shorts. We had pants in our backpacks - ready for adverse weather. We both took off our shorts, spent several minutes in our undies at the front of the queue while we fished out our pants, put them on, and were then admitted into Vatican city. Nobody seemed too concerned about this - the letter of the law appeared to be the important thing. Or Dog forbid the pope should see our knee caps.

3. My slightly crazy, also exmo sister wore pants to the last family funeral. On the day of the funeral she had a minor crisis when she discovered she didn't have any underwear. She, and a couple of other bemused siblings were staying at my place. I told her there were a few hours to go, she could wash the undies she wore on the plane (International, Australia to New Zealand), and we could dry them in time for the funeral. She wailed "But I wore a skirt!". She had worn a long skirt and had not a single pair of undies with her. No one has worked out how she could somehow forget to put on underwear for an international flight.

the shame of it all (fake gasp).

Reasons why pants are more modest than skirts/dresses:

Your entire leg is covered, not just a portion of it (depending on skirt length, of course).

No one tries to look up your pantleg.

You don't accidentally flash someone getting in/out of the car, sitting down, bending, etc.

Perfectly modest pants don't become immodest when you change position.

On a windy day, you don't have to worry about your pants blowing over your head.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to tuck your pants into the back of your pantyhose.

It's also a little harder to copulate in pants.

Make sure you tell her it is NOT 'Sacrament' It is called Communion. I will never forget the incident in SLC when 2 mishies decided to go to a Catholic Church there and got in line when Communion was being done...They thought anyone could recieve it, and it created a ruckus. Guess the priest had to give them a real fast lesson on who exactly can recieve Communion.

Thanks for that, I am usually in my happy place by that stage of the proceedings, looking at the beautiful stained glass windows.