Jenni and the Bishops

DENVER: You may or may not know Jenni, the 21-year-old whom 500,000 web surfers watch live every day as she dresses, sleeps, or has sex. But this voyeur’s dream in streaming video became the target of Roman Catholic wrath Thursday, as archbishops and cable moguls urged the church to treat the “stunningly, stunningly immoral” Internet as a “virtual congregation” -- and instill morality in cyberspace.

The Jenni site “represents the worst of who we are,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver told a packed Catholic Conference on New Technologies in the city’s public library. He said the point of the conference --attended by seven cardinals and 50 bishops, among others -- was to “discover new ways of speaking to the people who know computers and things.”

To begin this stunning technological leap, the church invited Leo Hindery, president of Tele-Communications Inc., to speak on Jenni and other matters. "It may sound pathetic," said Hindery, "but men worldwide regard Jenni as their virtual girlfriend.” Unfortunately, he neglected to give out the URL.