Selling A Home? Buy & Bury A St Joseph Statue Bury a statue to sell a house? If you are like most of us, you've probably never heard of the very old Catholic tradition of burying a St Joseph statue upside down to expedite selling property. Venerated in the Catholic, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox religions as a saint, Joseph (the husband of Jesus' mother Mary), is thought of as the patron saint of workers and declared by Pope Pius IX as the protector of the Catholic Church in the 19th century.