A three-day mass hack attack on the Vatican Web site over Christmas failed to breach the defences of the online wing of the Roman Catholic Church. But the site nearly buckled under the barrage. Crackers attempted to replace itineraries for pilgrims posted on the site with pornography and blasphemy, The Guardian reports. It gets worse: the attackers "wanted to plant bugs that would block pages and crash the site". That sounds like eternal hellfire and damnation to us. Following the crack, The Vatican has recruited a former hacker to help shore up its Web security. ® www.vatican.va