(2001-06-11) --San Francisco Chronicle
By Jon Carroll

WE ARE STILL trying to figure out what the Internet is good for. That's one of the reasons for the huge dot-com bust -- people created companies based on guesses. The guesses seemed logical, but they were wrong.

Being wrong is fine. Being wrong with $50 million of other people's money is not fine. Hence the perception that it's all over. But it's not all over. The Internet is still teaching us what it is good at.

People are still trying to figure out how to make a business model out of what the Internet is good at. This is proving to be hard. The Internet may be a very good thing for information and a very bad thing for business models.

One thing the Internet is very good at is linking tiny communities of people with shared interests. It's been an enormous boon to people with rare diseases, for instance. People interested in niche adoptions -- Mormon parents of Russian babies, say -- are finding help on the Internet. Collectors of odd devices, periodicals or ceramic objects can find like-minded humans on the Internet.

This is going on under the radar, because this great modern blessing does not scale up to a major profit center. Small entrepreneurs, though, can find places. Grandiose thinking, it turns out, is disastrous. Modest thinking is helpful.

So here's what we know: Many American Roman Catholics are at odds with some of the teachings of their church. Against the wishes of the Vatican, they are reinventing their religion. It is not legitimate, but it is real. The most widespread doctrinal disagreement concerns birth control, but there are others.

People believe that they can differ with the pope in Rome and still be good Catholics. The case for the legitimacy of this view is made in "Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit," by Garry Wills. I urge you to read the book; Wills is a devout Catholic who writes with great skill and compassion.

WHICH BRINGS US to www.rentapriest.com, a 6-year-old service profiled last week by Susan Saulny of the New York Times. There are men who are ordained as priests but have chosen to leave the church, usually to get married. There are believing Catholics who cannot find suitable ordained priests, either because what they want is not sanctioned by the church -- outdoor weddings is the example used in the story -- or simply because there is a nationwide shortage of priests.

The woman who started the Web site had had trouble finding someone to give her mother the sacrament of anointing the sick. She realized that others might be in her situation. Hence the Web site.

A priest cannot be unordained. Weddings performed by him are sanctioned by the state -- but not, of course, by the church, which is strongly opposed to rentapriest.com. Nevertheless, a Catholic community is forming that both is and is not a part of the larger church. This is just true.

AS THE GOVERNMENTS and corporations of the world are finding out, the Internet is a swell place for dissenters. There are no doctrines and no boundaries. This can be harmful or beneficial, but however it is judged, that is its nature.

This fact may also suggest why businesses failed. In a situation in which the consumer feels powerful, businesses have to deliver. Lacking any face-to- face connection with the seller, the buyer is less likely to grant slack. And all new businesses need slack, because all new businesses are going to get things wrong.

On the other hand, people with something in common are very generous with each other. People involved in barter or conversation each have a stake in the outcome. Glitches are quickly forgiven. If it takes rentapriest.com time to load, or if the info is not quite right -- well, it'll be fixed.

People are just grateful that it's there. It fills a need. It's about a common search for grace in a changing world. Good for it.