The Internet makes for dangerous, subverting times for the Catholic Church, which has traditionally addressed the faithful from a special, timeless space at the Roman centre, which claims the authority, once it has spoken on a disputed issue or principle, to discourage further debate. . . But how does such a centralized space, harbouring immutable, authoritative texts, appear to the hordes of participator-voyagers surfing on multi-dimensional oceans of centreless, timeless and real-time information: cyberspace, where every commodity, pretension and opinion can be peddled, compared and contrasted, sampled, reshaped, interactively questioned, contradicted, bookmarked and consigned to oblivion – including the proliferating dissidents, sects, liberal, progressive, conservative, neoconservative, restorationist and reactionary factions of Catholicism.40
If John Paul II was seen as being the first televisual Pope, his long pontificate has also witnessed the next major technological challenge – the arrival of the Internet. At first sight, the idea of nuns hunched over computer consoles is one the many anachronisms surrounding the Roman Church. Yet, its arrival has precipitated a very significant challenge to all forms of organised religion. As Chidester puts it, ‘Christianity has passed through several information revolutions – from the spoken to the written word, from verbal metaphors to visible icons, from handwriting to movable type, from the monastic codex to the mass-distributed book – that altered the form and content of Christian communication’.41 While television and radio were easy for the Vatican to control, now the Internet has been seized upon as the biggest issue in terms of controlling worship.
There is an inextricable link between the territorial base of the Vatican and the deterritorialisation implied by new communications technologies:
The Vatican website, for example, was housed in the Apostolic Palace, three floors below the pope’s personal quarters. It was supported by three machines that were named after the archangels Raphael, Michael and Gabriel. However, the website could be accessed anywhere in the world. As Sister Judith Zoebelein explained in an interview on the religious site operated by Time magazine, God. com, the Internet was like the Holy Spirit, silent and invisible. Through this utopian character of the Internet, the Vatican website seemed to transcend the ordinary limits of spatial location in the world. Therefore, although its computer machinery was housed at the papal residence, the Vatican Website itself was everywhere and nowhere, available in any place in the world and tied to no particular location.42
The website – www. vatican. va – contains a stylised representation of St Peter’s Square, and allows access to papal speeches and Vatican publications, along with dates of religious services and information for pilgrims. This can be done in a whole range of languages, reflecting the geographical spread of the Church. As such, the website was an important forum for co-ordinating the 2000 Holy Year, a ‘metamedium of the various Catholic information sources. From the pages of this section it is possible to read articles from L’Osservatore Romano, listen to Radio Jubilaeum live (in at least a dozen languages), and even watch Vatican television (for the first time on line).’43 Yet here, the website is – according to Domanin and Porro – merely reflective of the hierarchical decision-making, a means of choreographing and marshalling the faithful rather than opening up space for theological debate.
So, the Internet has profound implications for at least three reasons. First, it gives the opportunity for ‘global’ grassroots religious discussion in email chat-rooms, which may give rise to an alternative (perhaps postmodern) theology.44 What does this mean for the Vatican’s control of doctrine? It has been argued that Internet chat-rooms offer alternative spaces of theological discussion among the grassroots. Clearly, this has parallels with Vatican II’s call for greater collegiality and Liberation theology’s organisational stress on ‘base communities’. It undermines the hierarchical notion of the Church based on papal infallibility, or at least offers space to discuss papal edicts. Here, old questions as to what constitutes ‘the Church’ are given new form, in that ‘going to cyberchurch’45 may be as significant in a global context as conventional territorial church-going. And furthermore, ‘by clicking on linked sites more erudite users can also explore the possibilities of "hypertheology", connecting, for instance, texts in the Qur’an with those in the Bible’.46
Second, by extension, this transforms the nature of what is understood by the ‘church’ as a gathering; as might be recalled, a firm message from Vatican II was the reassertion of ancient forms of ‘church’ attendance, which was gradually replaced by more institutionalised forms of Catholicism. And third, cyberspace religion also involves the dematerialisation of worship, the removal of many of the iconic aspects of actual church attendance, which has a major impact on a religion which places the liturgy and sainthood in a more prominent position than other forms of Christianity.
So, cyberspace has been eagerly marshalled by the Vatican and used to enhance its territorial power. Yet, it is not clear how far grassroots Catholics will remain passive consumers of the cybermessage.
Conclusion
From its rebuilding between 1506 and 1614, St Peter’s basilica has retained its centrality in one of the world’s most powerful organised religions. I have tried to show that it has been more than a mere backdrop in the development and evolution of Catholicism, but rather that as a centre of human practice – whether papal or pilgrim, religious or secular – the basilica and its environs have played a material role that cannot be dissociated from a more abstract understanding of religious change. As with Sidorov’s description of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, the development of major churches cannot be dissociated from the political and social transformations that effect or even engulf them, and St Peter’s is no exception.47
The changing nature of the Catholic Church can be understood through close attention to how the basilica and its surrounding spaces have been used over the last few decades. Such an analysis cannot, alone, be seen as sufficient in understanding an organisation that has approximately one billion followers around the globe. The power and symbolism of Rome cannot be assumed – Catholicism is famous for the plasticity of its incorporation into local cultures.48 Yet, an understanding of how its territorial base is used, visited, mediated, politicised and performed opens up a number of insights into the future direction of the Church.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Bob Smith of the Cartographic Unit, University of Southampton, for drawing the map. This first appeared in D. McNeill (2003) ‘Rome, global city? Church, state and the Jubilee 2000’, Political Geography 22 (5): 535-56.