Thursday, June 1, 2006

The Buck$ Behind VIRTUS - The haze clears a bit

Georgette, our Hyderabad, India, correspondent, the power behind Chronicle of a Meandering Traveller has been doing a little research and it seems that the old aphorism "Follow the Money" used by many investigators came in handy for her.

Most of you are aware that Spero News came up with an article yesterday, May 31, written by Elizabeth Schwab, which pretty well trashed much of what has been happening recently in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis. It appears that this Ms. Schwab, with her husband, Ken was one of the founders of the Desert Voice web page which is now posting the homilies of popular preacher Father Robert Altier that had been removed on order of the Archbishop from the St Agnes parish website.


Father Altier has recently been transferred frm St Agnes parish in St Paul to a nursing home in Hastings, MN. The ostensible reason for the transfer of Father Altier was his vehement oppostion to the sex education program VIRTUS which was deemed the principal program recommended by the Archdiocese for its parishes with mandatory participation.

There is another program, "Formation in Christian Chastity" (FICC), that 31 parishes of the 220 in the Archdiocese have chosen to use, taking advantage of an option not initially made clear here. FICC apparently is owned by the Diocese of Harrisburg, PA, and is available for use by any Diocese at no charge.


VIRTUS with its controversial "Talking About Touching" program, is a private corporation, many of whose stockholders are U.S. dioceses. It is alleged that St Paul-Minneapolis Vicar General Father Kevin McDonough sits on the board of VIRTUS.

Georgette discovered a May 16 opinion piece in Spero News by Ms. Schwab that provides detailed information on the nature of VIRTUS and its ownership. [See Her complete post here]

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