Idol Worship

[SonicRose]

Taken from the New York Times...

Realty Agent Who'll Work for 0%
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON

Published: April 14, 2005

WHEN a West Village town house went on the market recently, the owners were told by real estate agents and appraisers that they would never get more than $5 million for it. The house sold for well over $6 million, within spitting distance of the asking price that everyone said they wouldn't get. Milla Jovovich, the actress, who viewed it with her boyfriend, Sean Lennon, the musician, bought it on a second visit.

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One party to the sale was a celebrity real estate agent, though he was not on the staff at Sotheby's, which had an exclusive listing on the house.

He was St. Joseph, husband of Mary, Jesus' mother. The saint is known informally, and internationally, as the patron of real estate after a variety of unattributable interventions over the years in earthly matters dealing with the buying and selling of property. Early stories include one about nuns in the Middle Ages who received land for a convent after burying a St. Joseph's medal and praying to it.

With real estate transactions something of a new national sport, St. Joseph statues, packaged in a home seller's kit that includes a prayer and instructions for burial, are now a best seller for Christian bookstores, catalogs and Web sites and are popular, vendors say, with people of all denominations. At church shops like St. Francis of Assisi's on West 31st Street in New York, the kits are on back order, and manufacturers say they are having difficulty meeting demand, especially with the arrival of spring, traditionally the biggest home-selling season.

In some parts of the country, including the Chicago area and Arizona, St. Joseph kits are being picked up as stock items by Ace and True Value hardware stores, as a kind of sell-your-house tool like a brighter porch light. Hallmark has a kit, too. There is also a Spanish-language edition.

According to the legend, you bury the St. Joseph statue upside down in your yard, wait for an acceptable offer (Ms. Jovovich and Mr. Lennon appeared the same afternoon the West Village homeowner planted the statue), dig it up after the sale and display it in a place of pride in your new home. Co-op and condo owners might try putting the statue in the ficus pot.

Judith Zapth, a spokeswoman for Roman Inc., a producer of Christian and inspirational gifts and decorative accessories, described the salesmanship of St. Joseph as "an old wives' tale that caught on." Ms. Zapth would not reveal figures, except to say that tens of thousands of kits are sold annually and that sales increased 30 percent last year. Kits retail for $4 to $10.

Phil Cates, a mortgage banker in Modesto, Calif., operates a company called St. Joseph Statue (http://www.stjosephstatue.com), which sells kits and invites subscribers to list property for sale. The site also carries a national directory of real estate agents who subscribe to his "Pro Believers" club. Mr. Cates said that kit sales increased 46 percent last year. He is developing two upscale versions of the statue, one hand-painted and one crystal, for expensive houses.

"People selling multimillion-dollar homes are asking for nicer stuff," said Mr. Cates, who was previously vice president of a company that sold millions of used whiskey barrels to nurseries and home centers to be used as outdoor planters.

St. Joseph and his preternatural ability do not come without their issues. Robert Malhame, whose company, Malhame, in Melville, N.Y., produces Roman Catholic giftware including St. Joseph kits, said that there were Christian bookstores in the Midwest that would not order Malhame's catalog because they felt that the legend had crossed the line between religion and superstition. Malhame supplies kits to the gift shop at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, where they are selling well, Mr. Malhame said.

Acknowledging the concern, Ann DeMartino - whose company, TWOS Sales in St. Charles, Ill., sold a record 80,000 kits last year, some to Ace and Hallmark - said she was trying to "bring it back to faith and prayer," adding that "there's a lot of hocus-pocus that goes with it."

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Somehow that seems so wrong to me... Praying to Joseph? Not even him! An idol of him!

[Ashley]

Woo, I can smell a debate with this one. Locked.