WikiPopeia

A Vatican has announced that this year's Christmas message to the world's faithful from Pope Benedict XVI will be released in a novel new format.

"Pope Benedict's URBI ET ORBI* message will be published in the form of a wiki," a spokespriest said. "From now on, Papal encyclicals will be collaborative."

"A wiki is a collection of collaborative hypertext or 'web' pages that can be edited by a group. Wiki wiki means 'rapidly' in the Hawaiian language, and we hope this quickly moves the Roman Catholic Church to the front of the technology wave."

A wiki site allows anyone to edit, delete, link or modify the content on the web. Wikis have been used extensively by technology innovators to quickly move projects forward to completion.

"His Holiness thinks this breakthrough could silence centuries of criticism about the Catholic church's authoritarian structure, bring a breath of fresh air into the Vatican and-- as an incidental side benefit --confer Papal infallibility on everyone... at least those with Internet access."

Visit Pope Benedict's wiki at vaticanwiki.wikispaces.com/

A sample wiki of the encyclical from last year has been provided to give the faithful some practice in expressing their views. Go ahead -- indulge yourself. Ex Cathedra.

*(Urbi et Orbi, literally "to the City [of Rome] and to the World," was a standard opening of Roman proclamations. The term is now used to denote the papal addresses at Christmas and Easter).

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