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NORFOLK, Va.- A Virginia city council voted to allow a law firm to paint a mural on its business featuring the Roman goddess Virtus with a bare breast exposed. The Norfolk City Council voted 7-0 Tuesday to reverse the decision by the Planning Commission to deny the Montagna Klein Camden law firm permission to paint the mural of Virtus, who appears on the Virginia state seal, on the outside of its Monticello Avenue office building, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Wednesday. The planning commission had said the planned image of the Roman goddess was too large and out of proportion with...

RICHMOND, Va.- Virginia's attorney general said his staff will cease using lapel pins featuring a state seal with the Roman goddess Virtus' breast covered with armor. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced Monday the pins are being retired after controversy surrounding the breastplate, which covered the usually exposed left breast of Virtus, or virtue, on the state seal, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Tuesday. Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the official, said that the attorney general chose the image because of its similarity to a historic version of the state seal. He said the pins were paid for with Cuccinelli's campaign funds,...

Charlie Hughes is a volunteer's volunteer, collecting old cell phones for battered women, running clothing drives and gathering old bicycles for reuse around the world. For more than two decades, the 74-year-old West Amwell man gave his time to St. John's Roman Catholic Church in Lambertville, most recently for the parish's Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which helps the poor. But a dispute over a church program designed to prevent abuse of children has angered Hughes and dozens of other volunteers, largely depleting the society's membership. At least 40 volunteers, lectors and eucharistic ministers have been dismissed or eliminated...

The USCCB and the “Safe Environment” Programs: Safe isn’t Safe Anymore by Elizabeth Schwab   www.desertvoice.org   May 23, 2006 Those who grew up in the 50s and 60s may still remember their first elementary reader about the adventures of Dick and Jane. It was a simpler world back then, and Dick and Jane were as gay as could be. Gay. They were happy, carefree. Today a quite different meaning comes to mind. Amazing, isn’t it, how that one word has changed forever. Another word undergoing a similar transformation today is the word “safe.” Suddenly there is a push for safety in all forms...

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) enjoys the support of homosexual activist groups for its "Virtus" program intended to protect children from sexual predators. Virtus, the Latin word for virtue, is a set of programs developed by the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, called "Protecting God's Children™" for the USCCB. The program, used in dioceses throughout the US, proposes "training" for children, parents, clergy, teachers and church staff and volunteers and focuses part of its effort in a sex-education program for children as young as six in Catholic schools. The child sex-ed component, called "Talking about Touching," has been...

Abusing God’s Children By Brian Mershon MichNews.com Sep 14, 2005 In this regard, we recall what the Holy Father teaches in Familiaris consortio: "The Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles. That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenity -- while still in the years of innocence -- by opening the way to vice". Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, Pontifical Council for the Family Guidelines for Education Within the Family (November 21, 1995) Penis. Vagina. Buttocks. Anus....

THE VIRTUS PROGRAM IN THE CLEVELAND DIOCESE A reader has emailed me asking for my comments on the Cleveland Virtus Program. This is the first I've heard of it. Nothing has been said in my parish bulletin about this program, and I'm not involved with the school. The reader is also a blogger who has described it in an archived blog where it appears to be the program for parish volunteers who work with children. You know, the ones who were never guilty of anything in the first place, but who have to bear the brunt of the failings of...