You know your parish has gone over the electronic communications edge when:

• The pastor reads his sermon from a palm-held computer "notepad"

• There are cell-phone chargers next to the pew-pencil drill holes

• MCI takes out full-page ads in the parish bulletin

• At the parish flea market, used cell phones and answering machines outnumber bowling balls, blenders and electric can-openers.

• When the bells are rung following the consecration, half the congregation reaches into pockets or purses to see if it was for them. (Theologically speaking, of course, it was.)

• The parish not only has an Internet web site, the parish council has discussed petitioning the bishop to change the parish name to "All Saints Domain"

• Everyone in the parish assumes everyone knows what "domain" means

• People without email addresses are known as "the needy"

• As an April Fool's Day joke on the pastor, several of the teenagers hid their pagers around his office, then called them all simultaneously. Apparently it did not startle him. He said he felt like he was at Sunday liturgy.

• During coffee and doughnuts after Mass, people are overheard wondering if confession by email would be "licit." Someone thinks "licit" is the name of a new software company.

• A petition is circulating to partition the crying room, creating a "beepers-on" section.

• To quiet fussy 2-year-olds, handing them pagers on "vibrate" is more common than handing them Cheerios.

• Five-year-olds actually do say "deliver us some email" during the Our Father rather than "deliver us from evil."

• "It's getting so bad," I said to my colleague, "that pretty soon if you forget your contribution envelope, there'll be one of those credit card slides in your pew so you can charge it."
  "You mean your parish still uses envelopes?" he asked.