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The Patron Saint of PR
by John M. Reed
Comedians, carpenters and cab drivers have Patron Saints (if you guessed Sts. Vitus, Joseph and Fiacre, you are either a trivia expert of had convent training!). Patron Saints are heavenly intercessors, usually designated by the Vatican, whose lives and works are commended to the occupational groups institutions or special needs represented. Thus, skiers invoke St. Bernard, ice-skaters St. Lidwina and swordsmiths St. Maurice. Well and good. Morticians have St. Joseph of Arimathea, and maids have St. Zita, but what of public relations practitioners? Who represents our benighted profession in the Celestial Kingdom? There, there, be of good cheer. We are represented, indeed. Our delegate is St. Bernardine of Siena, and his Feast Day is May 20. The next time you need a divine helping hand, call on your heavenly PR contact!
Bernardine, a Franciscan preacher and promoter of devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, was born in 1380. Orphaned early, he was sent to school in Siena where he excelled in classical studies. During the Plague of 1400 he spent four months organizing services for an ministering to the stricken at the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. His career in the Order of Friars Minor was outstanding, particularly in the areas of recruitment, eloquent preaching and the writing of homiletics. He was a successful evangelist and propagandist. Following his death at Aquila in 1444, a basilica was built in the town, and his body remains on display there in an incorrupt state to this day.The principal mystery surrounding the Patron Saint of public relations is the manner in which St. Bernardine was designated. According to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican, a petition was brought by Cardinal Lecaro of Bologna in 1956, successfully seeking the nomination of Bernardine as Patron Saint of public relations practitioners in Italy. In 1960, Cardinal Feltin, Archbishop of Paris, sought and obtained a similar designation of Bernardine as Patron Saint of PR professionals in France. No one seems to know what or who prompted these prelates to petition the Holy See. However, in the intervening years by apparently osmotic process, the Italian preacher-writer, has become the universal Patron Saint of PR.
Vocations related to public relations that have Patron Saints, include journalists - St. Francis de Sales; editors - St. John Bosco; secretaries an stenographers - Sts. Genesius and Cassian; and , as a special category, hospital public relations - St. Paul, the Apostle. To cap this little report on heavenly intercession, it should be noted that St. Bernardine of Siena not only represents PR people, but also carries the burden for advertisers, communications personnel, and is simultaneously the Patron Saint of Italy.