In 1994, a devout Catholic woman from Vermont began having religious
visions and hearing the voice of the Virgin Mary. To spread word about
her mystical experiences, she turned to the Internet. As Paolo Apolito
records here, she is only one of many people who use the Web as a tool
of religious devotion. Every day, thousands of Catholics--from Italy and
Latin America to the United States and Bosnia--use the Internet to
describe and celebrate apparitions of Mary, to exchange relics and
advice in chat rooms, to make pilgrimages to religious Web sites, and to
practice the rites of their faith online.
But how has this potent new mix of technology and religiosity changed
the way Catholics view their faith? And what challenges do the
autonomous qualities of the Internet pose to the broader authority of
Catholicism? Does the democratic nature of access to digital
technologies constitute a return to a more archaic and mystical form of
Catholicism that predates the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican
Council?
In working through these questions, Apolito considers visions of Mary on
the Web over the past two decades, revealing a great deal about religion
as it is now experienced through new information technologies. The
Internet, he explains, has made possible a decentralized community of
the devoted, even as it has absorbed God into the shifts and
complexities of electronic circuitry. And this profound development in
religious life will only accelerate as use of the Internet spreads
around the world.
An indispensable guide to the future of Catholicism, The Internet and
the Madonna offers a compelling glimpse into the spiritual life of the
connected soul.
