Autom

Today we celebrate our 62nd Anniversary!  Autom has been in the business of selling affordable church supplies and Catholic gifts since 1948. 

As a special thank you to our many loyal customers and in honor of the year of our founding we are offering 19.48% Off Any Size Order now through May 7th, 2010.

**Use Coupon Code CPN1948 during checkout.**

Our History...

After a new found love for his Catholic faith, our founder Ignatius DiGiovanni began working as the manager of a small church bookstore at St. John’s Church in Manhattan. As business improved his health declined, and his family doctor suggested on numerous occasions that he move to a warm, dry climate. After much discussion with his new bride, Ignatius decided to start his own religious goods business in Phoenix, Arizona, with combined savings of only $1600 and the sheer will to succeed. Ignatius chose a name he had been thinking about for years: Autom was born in 1948, half for St. Augustine and half for St. Thomas Aquinas.

Ignatius DiGiovanni, new to town, somehow convinced the Franciscan Fathers of St. Mary's Church to pay his first six months' rent at the Phoenix bus terminal if he used, in his words, his "vast experience" in the religious goods business to open a retail store. The optimism of the moment was tempered somewhat by the gross sales of the first day, a mere $.75, but business improved and the word spread that a young man and his new wife were offering the growing city of Phoenix its first Catholic bookstore. Ignatius noticed that many young priests were stopping by the store in its first year. It was usually on their day off and the only transportation they could afford was the city bus. Therefore, as luck would have it, all the potential pastors of the boomtown of Phoenix would pass by the small retail store on their way to downtown. Friendships were forged that would last a lifetime, and Ignatius bonded with the future leaders of the Diocese of Phoenix and Tucson.

Business and the inventory grew, and Ignatius moved the firm to a storefront at 40 East Monroe in downtown Phoenix in 1951. Then in 1957 Ignatius purchased some land on North 7th Street to house the growing new Autom Company, and in September of that year, built a brand new 6,000 square foot building. All the supplies a church needed were now available in one beautiful location.

In 1963 Autom entered the mail order business with our first catalog. And now over 60 years later, we mail over 4,000,000 catalogs each year and have three locations; our original retail store and corporate office both located in Phoenix, as well as our a newly built 160,000 sq ft distribution center in Lewisburg, Tennessee.

Many kind and committed people have participated in the fantastic growth of Autom. Without their support and effort, the Autom of today would be only a dream.