The Vatican is none too happy about a new initiative to provide virtual holy cards of Italy’s most beloved saints via cell phones, dismissing the project as tacky and sacrilegious.
Francesco Italia and Barbara Labate, founders of a Milanese company called MacKay & Sisters, came up with the idea of providing images of saints and thematic prayers to subscribers willing to pay 3 euro for the convenience of keeping their patron protectors in their pockets. They liken the digital images to the paper holy cards that millions of Italians carry in their wallets, purses, cars, and luggage.
“We found a need and filled it,” said Barbara Labate. “We are merely catching up with the times. I think this will appeal to young people as well as grandmothers.”
The company started the service with 15 saints on offer and Labate said the hallowed catalogue will grow despite Vatican complaints.
“This is in really bad taste,” Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi, a member of the Italian bishops conference committee for doctrinal matters, told the Turin newspaper La Stampa. “It is a distortion of sacred things … selling ‘santini‘ for cell phones is horrifying,” he said.
But Labate, who is Sicilian and recalls how her mother gave her a “santino” to put in her luggage when she traveled, rejected the criticism.
“We are simply offering a service to the faithful. We are doing this with the maximum respect, dignity and professionalism for believers,” she said.
So, how to get your digital saint? Send an sms that says “SANTO” to 482224. You’ll be charged three euro and inreturn you’ll receive an image of your chosen saint and a thematic prayer related to your chosen protector, whether Padre Pio, the Virgin Mary, Saint Michael the Archangel, Pope John Paul II, or Jesus himself.
For further information, visit the Santi Protettori website.
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