'Heresy' Goes Digital

Cutting ties with the Catholic Church is, in theory, a relatively simple matter known as "debaptism." More and more Italians who aren't worried about the Vatican's formal stance on what it calls "an act of apostasy, heresy or schism" are finding the documents they need online. Wired considers the digital angle on an ecclesiastical process.

Italy is 90% Catholic, but church attendance is far lower, as is the percentage of citizens who use the Web regularly. Still, one site that makes the formal letter available reports 30,000 downloads—and "a traffic spike every time the pope says something unpopular." It even offers an updated document intended to dissuade parish priests from alerting the petitioner's family. (More religion stories.)