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A company sending cellphone “holy cards,” kind of like baseball cards for saints, has been labeled crass and horrifying by some officials in the Catholic Church. Holy cards, called santinos (little saints) have been popular for years and can be commonly seen taped to the dashboard of taxis and in peoples wallets. But it seems for the Catholic Church, sending holy card images via cellphone is crossing the line.
“We found a need and filled it,” Barbara Labate said of the cell phone santinis. “We are merely catching up with the times. I think this will appeal to young people as well as grandmothers,” Labate said.
Maybe they should just get with it and name a patron saint of cellphones reception.
Nearly every shop near the Vatican sells paper "santini" but not everyone in the Church thinks cellphones and saints are a marriage made in heaven.
"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.
(news.yahoo)
References: santiprotettori, news.yahoo
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