Cady Mansell was denied her First Communion for dressing in a suit instead of a dress at St. John the Evangelist Catholic school in St. John, Indiana.
The schoolgirl has always been fashion conscious, and when it came to dressing for the milestone, The Washington Post noted that the 9-year-old had decided on an all-white suit which she said "kind of sparkles in the sunlight."
However, when officials from the Catholic school learned about her planned outfit, they informed the family that she would either have to wear a dress or be excluded from receiving her First Communion with her classmates.
Instead she would have to do it privately and be excluded from group photos and barred from sitting with her friends.
Cady's mother, Chris Mansell, asked the priest to reconsider the decision but later explained in a post to Facebook that her daughter missed her First Communion because she was not allowed to wear her suit.
"The priest told us we are raising our daughter wrong and that we should make her dress feminine because she doesn't have the brain development and maturity to make decisions about how to dress," she wrote.
An official from the school, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Washington Post the school was unable to bend its dress code for Cady.
"We have a dress code in place for our school," the official, who was not behind the banning, explained. "We consistently enforce that. Oftentimes you’ll get somebody who wants to wear sneakers instead of dress shoes, or a purple shirt instead of a white shirt."
The official added that most people had dress codes at work and for other occasions.
The Mansells have since left the church and pulled their daughters from the school, and Cady’s story has drawn widespread interest.