Saint Valentine was beaten and beheaded in Rome in 269. Where's my candy?

A couple stories floating around the web about the Catholic Church leaning towards St. Rafael on this holy day of macking out. St. Rafael is the "little-known patron saint of 'happy meetings', according to the London Telegraph story, who arranged the biblical marriage between Tobias and Sarah (who had, shall we say, had been having a bad run - see Tobias 3:7-17 in the Apocrypha).

According to Rome, you pray for nine consecutive days to St. Rafael and there may be a heavenly intercession in your love life.

Neil Hughes, a 24-year-old physics graduate, has been single for a year and welcomes the Church's offer of help.

"It might sound like a crazy idea, but I believe that prayer is an important way of seeking guidance in life," he said.

"I'll be praying to St Raphael. It definitely beats trying to find your partner by getting drunk in a nightclub."

But nightclubs have their uses too, it seems:

Bishop Griffiths, who is also chairman of Catholic Youth Services, warned people against praying to St Raphael in search of sexual gratification.

"Prayer should not be used as a tool for people to find someone to jump into bed with. True love is much deeper than that."

Religion News Service has also sent out a version of the story out today.

I see that my hometown paper ran the AP story about X-rated animal sex tours on Valentine's day, which take place at progressive zoos.

Not surprising the story ran there. A weird place to grow up. We were home to a breeding program for rare animals at the Wild Animal Park division of the San Diego Zoo. And this strange guy created a sperm bank for Nobel Laurates, which inspired a book last year. My dad once invited the guy to talk at his Kiwanis breakfast. As a whole, North County San Diego has a disproportionate interest in male effluvia.

My favorite take on the pagan antecedents of V-Day comes from Brooklyn Blogger ZeFrank, a genius, who reminds us that during the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, boys used to run around slapping women with strips of raw meat.

Where is the romance anymore?