CNS story about Italian businesses:

Perhaps it is not so unusual that the Vatican, surrounded by Italy, named a parking garage after a saint.

A recent nationwide study by the Milan Chamber of Commerce showed that some 21,000 Italian companies are named after saints — 1,000 more than in 2005.

The study was published on the Nov. 1 All Saints’ Day and showed that 65 Italian businesses have "ognissanti," Italian for "all saints," in their name.

Also this, related to that poll folks were discussing a couple of days ago:

Some orthodox feathers were ruffled when the poll, conducted for the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, reported that 31 percent of those surveyed said they had invoked the help of St. Padre Pio, 9 percent said Mary and only 2 percent said they had prayed to Jesus for help.

But Father Tonino Lasconi, religious education expert, told Vatican Radio it was not fair to condemn the majority who responded to the poll; in fact, those who answered Jesus or Mary were the ones who probably did not understand the question.

The poll takers asked 600 practicing Catholics, "Have you ever invoked the help of a saint?" Of the 70 percent who said "yes," the survey asked, "Which saint?"

Father Lasconi said regular churchgoers regularly pray to Jesus and Mary, so it is obvious that most respondents assumed the question was looking for other figures.

snip

The polling company said there were "significant differences" depending on where the respondents lived.

"In the northwest, images of St. Francis prevail; in the northeast and on the islands, it is the Blessed Virgin; in central regions it is St. Rita; and in the south, it was Padre Pio with 71 percent" of respondents saying they had his photo in their car or home.

If the survey had been limited to Roman shopkeepers and Roman taxi drivers, Padre Pio still would have come out on top — his figure is a fixture near cash registers and on dashboards.