O Click All Ye Faithful

Deep inside the Vatican, a white-haired nun dressed in a brown habit opens

the door to a room full of computers. The whirring machines hold some of the

mysteries of the Holy See, including photographs of the Vatican Secret Archives

and of ancient illustrated manuscripts. No, this isn't a movie trailer for The

Da Vinci Code. Our guide is Sister Judith Zoebelein, the editorial director of

the Internet Office of the Holy See. She's showing off a small, but potent

Vatican data center, which bristles with servers and other high-tech gear.

It's no secret that the Vatican has a fantastic website. It brims with fine

art and practical information about the Catholic Church. The site,

www.vatican.va, which comes in six languages, was even nominated for a

prestigious Webby Award a few years back. But little is known about the woman

who is behind it. Sister Judith, a 57-year-old American, grew up in a

middle-class household in the Hamptons on the eastern tip of Long Island. She

and a handful of colleagues were Internet pioneers, when in 1995, they launched

the Vatican website. Since then, she has greatly expanded the site, including

images of art from the Vatican Museums, a powerful search engine, and videos of

restoration projects.

Now Sister Judith is creating a second Vatican website, set for launch in the

fall, which is aimed at bringing together the faithfuls so that they can

interact. Think of it as MySpace.com (NWS ) for Catholics. There will be

personal news updates, e-learning programs, and areas set aside for families,

young people, and parishes. “People will be able to find each other and work

together online, and then go back and use what they have learned or done in

their own communities,” says Sister Judith.

Winding Path



The new site will likely boost visitor traffic, as well. The current Vatican

site typically gets about 1 mn unique visitors per month, though when Pope John

Paul II died last April, it spiked up to 1.8 mn US visitors, according to

traffic tracker Nielsen/NetRatings. That temporarily put it in the same league

with the most popular religious destinations including Beliefnet, a multi-faith

site, and the Mormon church's site.

How did an English major from a tony American beach town end up becoming the

Internet nun? It was a winding path, but a search for meaning in life runs

through it. After graduating from Hofstra University on Long Island, where she

studied Irish drama, Sister Judith joined the Peace Corps and spent two years

teaching English in rural Thailand. Later, back in the US, she studied to teach

English as a second language. But meeting a group of nuns, the Franciscan

Sisters of the Eucharist, rekindled her childhood Catholicism, and she joined

the abbey in Meriden, Conn. “I was looking for something meaningful and

eternal,” she says.

As a member of the abbey, Sister Judith got assignments with social service

agencies that landed her in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Over the years, she

took an interest in computers and set up computer networks and

telecommunications systems in relief agency offices around the world. She was

called to the Vatican in 1991 to help out with its computing chores. “She had

the skills, and she was also very much an international personality-thanks to

all of her travel,” recalls Mother General Shaun Vergauwen of the Franciscan

Sisters.

Sister Judith identified the Web's potential shortly after it exploded on

the scene in the mid-1990s. She and a small group of Vatican techies took the

idea of launching a website to John Paul, who quickly gave them the go-ahead. It

was a humble beginning: Sister Judith posted one Web page containing a single

document, the Pope's 1995 Christmas Message. But the site expanded rapidly and

now contains a huge storehouse of information-not just for the faithful, but

for art lovers, historians, and tourists.

Two features stand out. For Catholics, the search engine is a powerful tool

to help them explore their faith. Type in a keyword such as “forgiveness,”

and you'll get results organized around various sources, including the Pope,

the Catechism, and the saints. For aficionados of Renaissance art, the site is a

revelation because of its use of 360-degree photography of the Vatican's

galleries and close-ups of artworks. Many of the Vatican's finest paintings

are ceiling frescoes. The only practical way to see them close up is on the

website. “This is an example of the Web providing an experience that can't

be had in the real world,” says Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby Awards.

Now, with the coming of the new faith-based community site, Sister Judith is

satisfying an evangelical drive that she has felt since her Peace Corps days.

For her, the Net is the ultimate way to reach millions of people and to connect

them with their deity. “It's about something much bigger than myself, and

it's also very Franciscan: You can touch it, you can change it, and you can

touch people with it,” she says.

While Sister Judith is quick to embrace the latest technological innovations,

don't expect to see Vatican bloggers anytime soon. A blog is “so personal,

such a mind dump,” she says. On the Internet, the Vatican draws the line at

self-indulgence. Pride, remember, is one of the seven deadly sins.

By Steve Hamm