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Italian Web site launches search to find 'Saint Internet'
2002-259-8
11/12/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
A 7th-century saint widely seen as the Vatican's front runner in the search to find a patron saint for the Internet has been rejected by cybernauts, according to a survey of Internet users launched on an Italian Web site.
St. Isidore, a Spanish bishop and a leading intellectual of the church who died in 636, had been suggested to the Vatican in 1999 as a possible patron saint for the Internet. He had compiled a form of encyclopaedia, Etymologies, with a structure similar to what is now known as a database. In Roman Catholic tradition, saints are often named as patrons of professions, churches, cities and nations, and with the recent explosion of interest in the Internet, many people suggested a patron saint was needed for Web surfers.
Pierfranco Pastore, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, confirmed last year that the Vatican was considering St Isidore for the role. But in a survey carried out by an Italian Web site (www.santiebeati.it) devoted to saints and their causes, St. Isidore came second to bottom, gaining only 5.05 per cent of the 10 000 votes registered between June 5 and October 4.
The saints who topped the list were St. Alphonsus Liguori (34.7 per cent), St. John Bosco (26.85 per cent), the Archangel Gabriel (25.44 per cent) and St Thecla of Iconium (6.28 per cent). Only St. Peter de Regalado, with 2.20 per cent of the votes, scored worse than St. Isidore.
'The massive interest in our survey has encouraged us to launch a second round,' with another six potential patrons, said Francesco Diani, the initiator of the site, which offers some of the most extensive information available on the Internet in Italian about Catholic saints.
Visitors to the site are now being asked to choose between St. Clare, Giacomo Alberione, St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Apostle Paul, St. Francis of Sales and St. Dominic. Once the second round is over, cybernauts will be asked to make a final choice from among the top candidates.
Among the candidates in the first round of voting, St. Alphonsus, who died in 1787, was an Italian bishop and wrote numerous books of popular devotion. St. John Bosco, also an Italian, who died in 1888, founded the Salesian Order, specializing in the education of young people. The Bible says the Archangel Gabriel brought the tidings to Mary of the imminent birth of Jesus. St. Thecla of Iconium lived in the 1st century, according to tradition, and was converted to Christianity by St. Paul. St. Peter de Regalado, a Spanish Franciscan from the 15th century, was renowned for having the gift of miracles.
As for those being polled in the second round of voting, St. Clare was a follower of St. Francis of Assisi; Giacomo Alberione, who died in 1971 and has not yet been beatified (the first step towards sainthood), founded numerous works to promote evangelization through the media; St. Maximilian, a Polish Franciscan, was killed by the Nazis in 1941 and canonized in 1982; St. Francis of Sales was the bishop of Geneva in the 17th century; and St. Dominic was the founder of the order of Dominicans, renowned for their preaching.
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