Controversial bare-breasted nun to greet Pope Francis in Naples

As Pope Francis enters Naples next weekend, he will be faced with a controversial large, poster-sized advertisement. Fashion label, Rosso di Sera has placed a 20-foot by 30-foot billboard of a "woman dressed in a nun's habit and jeans, clutching rosary beads with her naked breasts exposed" up in the sky, according to The Independent.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Just one week before the Pope's visit, the image causing uproar was placed several stories up in the city center.

Local residents and Catholic officials are demanding the advertisement be taken down before Francis' arrival.

It is being described as an "ugly image" and "offensive to intelligence, to women, to good taste and to faith." Some are speaking out saying the image could have been done "a bit less obscene" and it's timing is "inopportune."

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The advertising firm expresses there was no direct intent in creating controversy and the billboard was not "erected deliberately" for the Pope's visit.

"Trivializing the act of prayer was not the intention in any way," they stated to Reuters. "[We] strongly regret being accused of things extremely far from our values and our culture."

The company will take down the add before Pope Francis' visit, but only if asked to do so by a national advertising disciplinary body.

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