Do this in random access memory of me.

Maybe you never sit down for a chat without a keyboard and screen--or maybe the only Web sites you've ever seen are in the corner of your attic. In either case, here is everything you need to know to become a virtual Catholic.

Ever since the first Christians gathered incognito in a nameless upper room, the church's concept of community has largely remained unchanged. Generation after generation, the faithful have gathered in locations specially reserved for fellowship and devotional acts.

But this evening, sitting in my living room and tap-tapping on my computer keyboard, I have entered into a different type of community.

"I am a convert to Catholicism, and I sometimes have difficulty explaining church teachings to my 4-year-old."

The words appear across my screen, typed, I later learned, by a woman sitting at her computer 1,000 or more miles away from me. Connected by phone lines, our personal computers (PCs) carry messages to each other instantaneously. Before I can comment on her dilemma, responses flood in from more nimble-fingered people who have also congregated in this online chat room.

"Parents have difficulty explaining everything to 4-year-olds," chimes in one person, her wording flashing silently across my monitor only seconds after she types them.

"I'm a convert, too!" someone else commiserates. "The only answer is continual study until you feel confident enough to explain catechism."

"Paulist Press has some wonderful books aimed at the very young set," comments yet another. "You can get them from ..."

Interspersed among these comments are strings of other conversations. Questions and remarks on public confession, schools for the deaf, youth groups, and other topics flash across my screen. No less than three priests and a deacon are present, fielding questions and subtly directing the conversations to a predefined topic in tonight's Catholic Chat Forum. The forum is part of America Online, a company that provides online services to more than 4 million computer users. Online services are just one way people connect their computers to the Internet.

Dioceses, religious orders, charitable organizations, parishes, and parishioners--even the Magisterium to the level of the Vatican--are quickly learning to put this new communications medium to use. A new way to minister to the faithful, a forum in which to explain church teachings to the general public, a convenient research tool, and a way to keep in contact with others are among the reasons Roman Catholics are making the most of the Internet.

The Internet is a chaotic, ungoverned tangle of computers interconnected by high-speed telecommunications lines. The scale of this globe-spanning network is mind-boggling. By the end of this year more than 17 million computers in the U.S. alone are expected to have access to the Internet. Millions more have access worldwide. With the right combination of equipment (see "Getting started," page 32), people can gather and share information on topics of mutual interest, as well as type and send messages to each other.

Catholics are already fruitfully multiplying their presence on the Internet. Through enigmatically named manifestations of the Internet such as World Wide Web, Usenet, and Listserv, a number of priests have fostered online ministries, fielding doctrinal and theological questions from both Catholics and non-Catholics. Religious orders use them to promote vocations. "Thank you, St. Jude" notes find their way online, proclaiming the patron's miraculous favors to a new, technology-savvy clique of hopeless cases.

Among the ways the church is formally represented on the Internet is by the Bakers-field, California-based Catholic Online, an organization on whose board of directors sit the chairman of the bishops Communication Committee, the president and executive director of the Catholic Press Association, and other leaders of Catholic communications. Catholic Online manages and makes available to the public a vast library containing more than 30,000 files (documents or images saved in an electronic format computers can read) including encyclicals, writings of church fathers, and papal decrees.

The net effect

The Archdiocese of Atlanta is among the Catholic organizations taking advantage of the Internet's ability to reach large numbers of people throughout the country.

Like the Internet's virtual population, northern Georgia's very real populace is growing wildly. People--many from Boston, Chicago, and other cities--are flooding the rural area in search of rustic environs and simpler, safer living. "And the Catholic Church here is growing even faster than the general population," remarks Msgr. Peter A. Dora, pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Athens, Georgia. "It's just dizzying. We cannot build parishes fast enough."

To give newcomers and would-be migrants a sense of Catholicism in the South, Dora snapped photos of each parish in the archdiocese. He then turned the photos into digital images that can be displayed on PC monitors and posted them on the archdiocese's World Wide Web page.

The World Wide Web, sometimes just called the Web, is the graphical face of the Internet. Web home pages let users display and view text, photos, diagrams, and charts. They provide companies, organizations, and individuals an attractive way to present information and provide people a straightforward way to gather that information and navigate to other Internet sites.

In addition to displaying the photos, Dora added each parish's street address, phone number, and Mass schedule. People visiting the home page can also read articles from the diocesan newspaper, the Georgia Bulletin, as well as find material on parochial schools and other Catholic institutions in the area. "It's a `who we are' kind of thing," he says, explaining that he wants to prepare potential newcomers for the church's minority status in upstate Georgia, where less than 3 percent of the population is Catholic.

"People moving here are entering a whole different culture of Catholicism than what they might be used to. We want to provide in one form or another some kind of overview of Catholicism in the South," he says. "We never managed to do that with printed brochures or books."

The 21st century scriptorium 

Far to the west of Georgia's growing northern territory is a monastery isolated in New Mexico's desert expanse. Solar panels provide the cloister's only electricity, and they power a small room of computers whose role is becoming increasingly significant to the monk's secluded lives.

Initially the Benedictines of Christ in the Desert Abbey used the Internet as a way to conveniently and unobtrusively answer the many questions they receive on contemplative life. Their home page later proved a useful way to call attention to the icons, sculptures, candles, and other wares the monks produce and sell.

Most recently the design of home pages itself has become a way for the monks to generate income and at the same time put their millennia-long tradition of manuscript illumination to fresh use.

"Scriptoriums have always been a part of monastic life, and illuminating Web pages is not very different from illuminating vellum. Only the technology is different," says Christ in the Desert's Brother Kieran Weeks, O.S.B. Clients are primarily nonprofit and religious organizations, though dioceses and even corporations have contracted Christ in the Desert for home-page design.

Bulletin board services, or BBSs, are yet another way computer users can communicate and share information with each other. BBSs usually provide local groups of people access to the Internet, free software, and an electronic forum for discussion. For example, the Holy Name Province of Franciscans started a BBS for members of its provincial administration to communicate with each other between monthly meetings. Later the province opened it to all the friars who can now use it to exchange electronic mail, or e-mail (see "Net speech," page 33), with one another.

In rural Kentucky, the operation of a BBS has evolved into something more than just communications. Father Michael Chowning, O.F.M. operates a BBS called the Peace Connection. Three hundred people in the remote Appalachian town of Hazard use the service to download software, play computer games, and send and receive e-mail with the rest of the world.

"I see it as part of my outreach; it has given me a service to provide the community," explains the Franciscan missionary. "I am helping people in this area live a fuller life and am bringing them things to improve their community. That is all part of evangelization."

The mission does not stop there, however. Few Hazard dwellers have technical expertise comparable to Chowning, a life-long radio and telephone buff. Those who have difficulty getting their home computers up and running can call Chowning, whom they know only as the operator of the local BBS. Chowning will try to solve their computer problems over the phone, making house calls when necessary. "It has given me an entry to the community that is very unique," he says. "If people here have a problem, they call or e-mail me for help not realizing I am a Catholic priest."

Chowning hopes that his technical assistance gives the predominantly Baptist Hazardians a positive impression of the Catholic Church, an impression that their remote geography might otherwise prevent.

All the newsgroups you can use

To Chowning and Dora, the Internet has become a tool that enriches their local communities. But the Internet can also be thought of as a community unto itself. Online services can take individuals who are geographically dispersed across the country--even across the world--and, through online discussions and e-mail, mold them into a community that would not otherwise exist.

Priests offer counsel and answer questions on faith. Lay ministers exchange advice. People gather for prayer, counsel, edification, and plain old chitchat--all the sorts of things that might occur in any healthy parish community.

The Internet as community is nowhere more prominent than in Usenet newsgroups and Listserv subscriptions.

The Usenet is a collection of more than 8,000 discussion topics. These topics are called newsgroups, though they only occasionally specifically address current events. They encompass very specific topics that range from divine apparitions to rock music, spirituality to science fiction. Those interested in a topic can send in comments--presently over 60,000 messages are sent each day--that are publicly posted for anyone on the Net to read.

Usenet's Catholic newsgroup contains discussion strings on papal infallibility, the tomb of the Blessed Virgin, "a former Protestant's view on Mary," the Gregorian calendar, the use of condoms, Pat Buchanan, and priest shortages.

Newsgroups--Catholic or otherwise -- can contain intelligent, insightful conversations. But too often they denigrate into infighting, catechism quoting, and petty bickering between liberal and conservative members.

Listserv subscriptions, or mailing lists, are similar to Usenet newsgroups but are less public. Like the Usenet, Listserv subscribers send and respond to messages on very focused topics. But instead of being displayed for the eyes of any passing Internet interloper, Listserv messages are sent directly to subscribers' computers. Listserv groups of interest to Catholics include a campus ministry list, a list of Dominican religious, the Kephas Married Catholic Priests Mailing List, the LesBiGay Catholic List, and the Merton Research Institute List. The litany of lists seems endless.

On the Internet "you can meet people of all persuasions and all interests, from all over the world," says Elizabeth Knuth, a library paraprofessional at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, who operates a home page from which visitors can locate hard-to-find writings of John Cassian, Saint Athanasius, Jacob Boehme, John Calvin, and other Christian writers.

"If you love a good argument, the Free Catholic Mailing List is very lively," she says. "If you have a special devotion to a particular saint, there is probably some group online that shares your interest. If you're passionate about social justice, you can read some important official church documents online, keep up on current events in newsgroups, visit home pages of like-minded people, and correspond via mailing lists or e-mail. If you have a question, you might find just the person who can help you on a mailing list, in a Usenet newsgroup, or from a home page."

Is it community?

By frequenting a newsgroup, subscribing to a mailing list, and e-mailing messages to people with similar interests, Catholics can communicate with other Catholics whom they might otherwise never meet. In this sense the Internet can be thought of as a community, or perhaps many communities.

However, for Catholics online, communities and relationships can only supplement the richer interaction that is the product of person-to-person contact, Dora reminds us. "In the Catholic Church, community is formed through the sacraments and then, we would hope, through the charitable actions that the sacraments prompt us to perform," he says, explaining that the Internet, no matter how sophisticated its technology, can never substitute for real community.

The Diocese of Raleigh in North Carolina recently added recordings of Sunday Mass and audio from its weekly diocesan TV program to its Web site. Visitors can download the audio files to their PCs and play them back. The Internet Mass, however, is intended to be used like radio or TV broadcast Masses--not as a substitute for Sunday obligation but as a way for those unable to attend Mass to hear it nonetheless.

Everything that makes the church and Christian community beautiful, dynamic, and potent is lost on the Internet. The towering majesty of Gothic spires and liturgies that draw one into communion with God and all God's people will never find their place in the online world now at our fingertips.

Yet at least one Catholic has almost literally found a home on the Internet. When French Bishop Jacques Gaillot was removed from the Diocese of Evreux for his outspoken views on the church and social justice, he found his new assignment as bishop of Partenia left him in charge of a barren, Saharan expanse--a titular see largely in Algeria that has been unoccupied since the sixth century.

To compensate, Gaillot placed Partenia on the virtual map by creating his own Web page (http://www.partenia.fr), through which anyone with a computer can communicate with Gaillot and call him or herself a member of his cyberdiocese.

"The primitive church was a kind of Internet in itself," Gaillot tells the New Yorker, "which was one of the reasons it was so difficult for the Roman Empire to combat it. The early Christians understood that what was most important was not to claim physical power in a physical place but to establish a network of believers--to be on line."

And what about Real Presence? Gaillot, of course, has no illusions that the Internet can be used to administer the sacraments or that it can replace the physical structure of the parish and diocese--at least, not yet. "There are many kinds of Presence, and a slow ascension from the degrees of Presence is part of the mystery of religion. Right now, the community of believers needs a physical Presence for the sacraments. But who knows what the future will bring?"

Keying in to the future

The Internet is very much a tool in the making. Everyone on it is still exploring its potential for communication.

The Holy See's home page is still under construction as the Vatican ascertains what material to place on it besides press releases, postcard-quality photos, and a meager handful of papal addresses. Professors at both Catholic and secular universities are experimenting with teaching college courses online so they can instruct students outside their geographical areas. An organization called Catholic Information Center on the Internet is compiling a database of volunteer opportunities across the country, as well as an online bookstore with 90,000 titles that can be purchased over the Internet.

In Georgia, Dora looks forward to adding audio files to the archival documents on the archdiocesan home page, containing commentary on weekly scripture readings that visitors can download to their computers.

Catholic Online is developing a program that will address the particular communications and other needs of local communities across the country. Mass schedules and church addresses are only the beginning, according to Michael Galloway, founder and president of Catholic Online. "This is something that is going to be revolutionary for the Catholic Church," he says.

Galloway envisions every diocese and all organizations is them to be listed on the Web. The information will be continuously updated so parochial-school students will be able to look up homework assignments, Knights of Columbus members will be able to pinpoint the location of their next spaghetti dinner, and travelers will be able to learn the activities of parishes across the country.

In addition to letting Catholics communicate more effectively with each other, the Internet has the potential of letting the church be even more involved in and responsive to the world around it, as Pope John Paul II himself recognized on World Communication Day in 1989. "In the new `computer culture' the Church ... can hear more clearly the voice of public opinion and enter into continuous discussion with the world around her, thus involving herself more immediately in the common search for solutions to humanity's many pressing problems."