The Archangel Gabriel is one of Christianity’s great communicators — it was he who brought word to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus, the Bible says. So it was only natural that when a search began for a patron saint for the Internet, Gabriel’s name arose.
According to a poll being conducted by a Roman Catholic organisation in northern Italy, he is now in sixth place behind a 20th century martyr, an educator and a publisher born in the 19th century, an 18th century evangeliser and a 13th century nun who saw visions projected on a wall. The web site, www.santiebeati.it, is soliciting votes with the aim of having an Internet patron saint named by Easter. ‘‘We had lots of requests for a patron, so we decided the Internet was the best tool for finding one,’’ said Roberto Diani, an Internet advisor for Italy’s Conference of Bishops.
The official choice will be made by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Cult and Discipline of Sacrament. For all the new-fangled methodology, the organisers are following an ancient tradition. For hundreds of years, Christians in villages, towns and cities got together and proclaimed a saintly hero and protector. Later, popes set the rules for sainthood, but nominations still came from the field. Now, in the name of professions and causes never imagined a millennium ago, Catholics are still lining up patron saints.
Recently, motorcyclists got their own patron saint, endorsed by the Vatican — St. Columbanus, a medieval Irish monk who walked through Europe setting up monasteries. He ended up in Bobbio, Italy, and cyclists there lobbied for him as protector. Pope John Paul II has named patron saints to promote religious instruction among key professions.
The patron saint hunt is a subset of a boom in saint recognition under John Paul II’s reign. These days, saints aren’t so much marching as flooding in. During the past quarter century, John Paul has presided over 465 canonisations, the formal declarations that recognise full-fledged saints, and 1,297 beatifications. That compares with 447 canonisations and 1,310 beatifications during the preceding 400 years.
Among the personages set for beatification this year is San Giacomo Alberione, founder of a major Catholic publishing house. He also leads the Internet patron race with 29 per cent of the vote. The others in the top six are Gabriel, St. John Bosco, founder of the Salesian order and a promoter of youth education; Sant’Alfonso Maria de Liguori, a bishop and prolific writer; and Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest and missionary who favoured use of technical advances to spread the Gospel.
He died of hunger in Auschwitz after offering his life in exchange for a condemned fellow prisoner. Finally, there’s St. Clare of Assisi, who saw visions on the wall (she’s the patron saint of television). Individual groups can put in for patrons.
Whether or not Gabriel climbs in the Santiebeati poll, he might be pleased to know that he was named recently by the Vatican as patron saint of telecommunications officers in the armies of Colombia and El Salvador.