Vatican selects second web patron saint

The Vatican appears to think that in the current economic climate technology could do with all the help it can get, as it today chose yet another patron saint of the internet.

Titus Brandsma, executed in Dachau in 1942, will join Saint Isidore of Seville who was selected by the Vatican in Febuary.

Titus was known for campaigning for freedom of the press in Nazi Germany, and Isidore is credited with the world's first encyclopaedia. But perhaps Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, would have been more appropriate considering the black cloud over the internet economy.

Initial choices, which failed to make the saintly grade, included Saint Rita of Cascia, St Phillip the Apostle, Canon Padre Pio and even the Archangel Gabriel.