A 'lapsed Catholic' owns BenedictXVI.com

IHT - NY Times: "An American who registered the Internet domain name BenedictXVI.com before the new pope was chosen said on Wednesday he had not worked out what to do with it but was pretty sure it would be a sin to sell it to a pornographer.

Rogers Cadenhead, a Florida resident who describes himself as the author of several technology books, said that he registered six domain names earlier this month based on names he thought the new pope might choose.

"I think I was the second-most excited person on the planet when they announced the name," Cadenhead said. But he added that the euphoria quickly faded as his Web server started to buckle under the weight of an estimated 1,000 hits a minute.

As well as Benedict XVI - the name chosen by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger after his election on Tuesday - Cadenhead registered for a nominal fee ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com and PiusXIII.com.

An attempt to visit BenedictXVI.com redirects the reader to Cadenhead's own Web site, on which he rejects the suggestion that he might be planning to cash in by selling the site to pornographers since they would be willing to pay most for it.

"Whatever I decide, it's going to be guided by a desire not to anger 1.1 billion Catholics," said Cadenhead, who says he has already rejected an offer from a gambling site. "Even though I'm a lapsed Catholic, I'm not lapsed that far."

He added that he was considering his options for the site but that if the pope's people were to approach him to discuss taking over the site, he might make some requests. "I'd like one of those big papal hats, and maybe three days/two nights at the Vatican hotel they built for the conclave," he said.

Cadenhead said he had already recouped his $72 investment in the six papal domain names with $77 in advertising revenue in 24 hours. The Vatican has its own Web site at www.vatican.va, and the address BenedictXVI.va does not exist, but a number of other variations of the new pope's name have been snapped up.

Benedict16.com and benedictXVI.de are for sale - the latter with a list price of €1,000, or $1,300, from a seller who is also offering pope-benedictxvi.com and similar German-language names.

An ostensibly more altruistic group has registered benedictxvi.org and is promising to build a fan site with news, pictures and information about Benedict XVI."