Patron Saint of the Nerds
By Michelle Delio |
Wired News
Nov 10 2004
NEW ORLEANS — Here in the oldest church building in New Orleans,
tucked into a dark corner by the door as far away from the main altar
as possible, stands the statue of St. Expedite — the unofficial
patron saint of hackers.
Unofficial because the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t know what to
do about St. Expedite. He’s too pagan to be a proper saint, and too
popular for his statues to be simply tossed out the door.
Today’s the Day. Statues of St. Expedite seem to appear at some
churches, a puzzling phenomenon. Where do the statues come from? Who
sends them? No one really seems to know who St. Expedite was in life
or even if he ever existed.
But whatever St. Expedite may or may not be, geeks, hackers, repentant
slackers, folks who run e-commerce sites and those who rely on brains
and sheer luck to survive have all claimed the saint as their own.
“People who are computer experts or who work with computers do say
Expedite is their patron saint,” said the Rev. Michael Amesse, pastor
of Our Lady of Guadeloupe Chapel in New Orleans, the only American
church with a statue of the saint.
“I don’t know why they say Expedite is the computer saint. St.
Isidore is the saint of technology and the internet. Yet these people
insist on praying to Expedite. Like all things that concern this saint,
it is a mystery.”
In 2002, the Catholic Church offered up St. Isidore of Seville as the
saint of computer programmers. Isidore seemed to be a fine choice —
in the 7th century, he produced one of the world’s first databases,
a 20-volume encyclopedia called The Etymologies, intended to be a
summation of everything that was known about the world he lived in.
But Isidore somehow seems a bit too plodding for hackers, plus his
life story includes none of the weird wordplay that makes so many
hackers happy.
St. Expedite’s name obviously relates to his attested ability to
deliver favors quickly to the faithful. But wait! There’s more —
a joke about how St. Expedite manages to maneuver his statues into
churches.
In 1781, or so the story goes, a packing case containing the body of
a saint who’d been buried in the Denfert-Rochereau catacombs of Paris
was sent to a community of nuns in the city. Those who sent the body
wrote “Expedite” on the case, to ensure fast delivery of the corpse
for the obvious reasons.
The nuns got confused, assumed Expedite was the name of a martyr,
prayed to him, had a bunch of prayers answered amazingly quickly and
the cult of St. Expedite was born. News of this saint who cheerfully
dispensed quick miracles soon spread rapidly through France and on
to other Catholic countries.
It’s a swell story, but Italians were asking St. Expedite to grant
their wishes well before 1781, so either the date or the entire story
is wrong. And the whole thing just screams urban legend anyway.
A different version of the same story is told in New Orleans.
Supposedly, the church of Our Lady of Guadeloupe received a big
shipment of assorted saint statues. Only one didn’t have a proper
label on the case identifying the saint whose statue was contained
within. But the crate did have an “Expedite” label on it, so the
locals decided that must be the saint’s name.
A century and a half later, according to the story, they found out
there was no saint called Expedite. However, a little research turned
up the obscure St. Expeditus, whose status as a possible Armenian
martyr gave the Expedite myth legitimacy.
St. Expedite is typically depicted as a young Roman centurion
squashing a crow beneath his right foot and hoisting a clock or,
in later versions, a cross inscribed with the word hodie (“today”
in Latin). A ribbon with the word cras (“tomorrow” in Latin) emerges
from the squished crow’s mouth. The idea is that St. Expedite destroys
people’s proclivity to procrastinate and vanquishes vague promises
of joyous tomorrows in favor of making things happen right now.
Why a crow? English-speaking people tend to mimic the sound a crow
makes as “caw caw.” Italians hear it as “cras cras.” In Italian folk
tales, crows and ravens are forever yapping on about tomorrow.
St. Expedite is also widely considered, among people who consider
such things, to provide real-time assistance on problems — he’s the
saint of the fast solution. He is also is the patron saint of people
who have to deliver work or products on a tight schedule.
While visiting St. Expedite in New Orleans, we saw half a dozen
people come in and tuck notes and flowers by the saint’s statue,
ignoring the official saints in the front of the church.
Today’s the Day. “St. Expedite got me a job fast after my company
closed down last month,” said Letish Jackson of New Orleans, who’d
come to the church to thank the saint. “If you knew how hard it is to
get jobs here you’d know that me being employed is a very big miracle.”
She’s not the only one who turned to the saint for financial help. A
recent article that appeared on the front page of The Wall Street
Journal noted that St. Expedite has also become the patron of victims
of outsourcing.
Jackson, and other Our Lady of Guadeloupe parishioners, said that
“computer people,” as Jackson described them, often come to visit St.
Expedite.
“I asked my friend who runs a computer repair service why those people
come here, and he says Expedite is the nerd’s saint,” said Jackson. “My
friend said St. Expedite is all about delivering information fast.”
Patron saints in general are broadband connections to the Almighty,
passing along messages from the desperate or faithful. And the Catholic
Church seems to have a patron saint for every possible need.
St. Joseph of Cupertino, the “flying friar,” is not the patron
saint of Mac users — he’s appealed to by skittish air travelers
(it’s said the good friar levitated whenever he was happy). Girls who
live in rural areas can pray to St. Germaine of Pibrac, the patron
of peasant females.
“I’m not a big believer in the saints, but St. Expedite is another
whole story — he’s so good he’s scary,” said freelance computer
support consultant Kathy Dupon, a resident of New Orleans. “My clients
were forever paying me late until I taped a card with the saint’s
picture behind my mailbox as a joke last year. Now my checks almost
always arrive on time.”
Wired news reporter Michelle Delio and photographer Laszlo Pataki have
begun their four-week, geek-seeking journey along the Great River
Road. If you know of a town they should visit, a person they should
meet, a weird roadside attraction they have to see or a great place
to fuel up on chili mac, barbecue, gumbo, boiled mudbugs and the like,
please send an e-mail to [email protected].