Even as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is seeking to curb e-mail use among its globe-trotting missionaries, a U.S. Roman Catholic diocese is turning to the Web to recruit new priests.
The LDS, also known as the Mormon church, fears its young missionaries will neglect their main task of spreading the church's gospel and recruiting new members if they get too caught up in writing e-mail messages to friends and family back home, said church spokesman Dan Rascon.
"We've asked the missionaries to write letters home, rather than using the e-mail or fax, because it could become a distraction," Rascon said.
He added that missionary men and women, aged 19 to 22, live an austere lifestyle that does not permit them to travel with personal computers, and said many have begun using borrowed computers to send e-mail or faxes while on the road. The Mormon missionaries can call home only twice a year (on Christmas and Mother's Day) while on their two-year missions and generally are only supposed to write one letter home per week.
While the Mormon church has always viewed proselytizing to potential new members as a top priority, the Catholic church is increasingly having to grapple with the problem of how to bring more new priests into the fold.
One diocese, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, has beaten all others to the punch and registered www.catholicpriest.com as its Web address. The diocese is using the new site and commercials on the MTV cable network to encourage young men to consider the priesthood.
The site features frequently asked questions about the priesthood and a wealth of background information for Catholic men considering whether they have a calling to serve in the church.
Easy to find
Many other dioceses and individual churches have launched their own Web sites, but the Providence diocese hopes that registering such a generic Web address will help make it simple for prospective seminary students to find the site, officials said in a statement. (Officials from the diocese were not immediately available for comment.)
Technology's ease of use may also be appealing to the 57,000 Mormons now on missions worldwide, but LDS officials fear missionaries will be tempted to ask too many favors of local church members with computers while they are on the road.
"By asking them to limit their communications to written letters, this lessens the burden on local church members whose equipment they might ask to use," Rascon said.
The church will make exceptions for missionaries in remote areas with poor postal service, he said.
"In areas where the postal service is compromised and e-mail is a much better option, that will be taken into consideration," Rascon said. "And certainly if there is an emergency situation and the missionary needs to get in touch with his or her family immediately, there can be an exception."
Not against technology
LDS operates a comprehensive Web site, and the church does not wish to be seen as anti-technology, he said.
"We're not against technology, but the focus of missionary work is teaching the gospel of Jesus, and that has to be the main priority," Rascon said.
