Mark Marchand, a Texan, created “Fantasy Conclave,” similar to the NFL fantasy drafts football fans sign up for. Instead of choosing an ideal football team, members picked who they thought would be elected pope, on what day of the conclave he would be chosen and what name he would take. After signing up, members were sent interesting “Pope Facts,” such as who leads the Church during the Sede Vacante.

The Fantasy Conclave is sponsored by several Catholic companies: eCatholic, Flocknote and CatholicStudentMinistry. com, which provided prizes for winners, including gift cards and a Fr. Robert Barron DVD series.

Since it is free to join, the fantasy is not considered gambling, and Marchand makes that clear on his webpage with a link to information on canon law regarding conclave wagers.

The web site adoptacardinal. com has taken a more traditional approach to the conclave, offering a chance to pray for one of the cardinals who could be named pope.

By signing up with an e-mail address registrants received the name of a cardinal to pray for, with his name, country and date of birth.

The web site was very popular, with more than 300,000 people praying. It states that “together with Mary at Pentecost, we want to implore the Holy Spirit to enlighten our cardinals so they may open up to God’s will, think His thoughts, do His deeds and speak His words.”

The Catholic Church has become increasingly tech savvy over the past few years, with Pope Benedict XVI using Twitter before he resigned, and the Vatican creating its own YouTube account.

And with the faithful following suit by supporting Church leaders in this time of transition by creating and joining “Fantasy Conclave” and “Adopt A Pope,” they are being obedient to the words of the now retired Benedict, who said in his message to youth for the 2009 World Communications Day, “to bring the witness of their faith to the digital world.”

(Boston, 25, is a third-year fine arts and drama student at the University of Calgary.)