"Someone had said, ‘Are we going to get a mailing list?' No, we don't use paper and stamps anymore, we just don't. We're an Internet generation," Kineke says.

Soon thereafter Kineke, an author and speaker on Catholic feminity, launched dignityofwomen.com, a website with contact information, an online version of the document, and updates on her movement to commemorate the 20th anniversary. Soon an e-mail listserv used by Kineke and her colleagues was aflame with rumors about this "lay group."

Who were these rabble rousers, promoting awareness of a Vatican document without any formal ties to the church? Were they qualified to speak on it?

"So many writers are used to the chain of command and say, ‘You guys are coloring outside of the lines,' and ‘Who are we to have the website?'" Kineke says. "It just looked like a bunch of rogue women."

Much attention has been paid to the ways technologies such as e-mail, text messaging, and new Web platforms have fundamentally altered the way we communicate. Less attention, however, has been paid to what this means for the church.

"Technology can be an incredibly powerful tool for the democratization or the participation of the faithful in decisions in the church," says Robert McClory, a former priest and professor emeritus of journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

McClory cites the work of Voice of the Faithful, the enormously influential lay group formed in the wake of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

"It started in Boston, and within two months they had 20,000 people on their list," McClory says. "That kind of thing never could have been done without e-mail."

Movements such as Kineke's-although operating independent of the hierarchy-stay well within accepted forms of lay participation. Others, however, may require the church to grow a little more flexible, while still others challenge the church's organizational structure outright.

Catholics can now exchange ideas on everything from raising children in the church to Catholic teaching without waiting for official support and organization. What's more, many can wield tremendous influence. The sum of initiatives enabled by new media technologies represents a potentially massive wave of participation by the laity.