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The Florida man who registered BenedictXVI.com weeks before Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became the Catholic Church's new pope has donated the Internet address to a New York charity, at least until the Vatican comes calling.

Rogers Cadenhead, a 38-year-old technical book author, bought BenedictXVI.com at the beginning of April after doing some research into papal naming conventions. When the new pope's name was announced, he said traffic to his Web site spiked to more than 1,000 hits a minute, media outlets flooded his voicemail with interview requests, and Catholics deluged his e-mail inbox with requests that he not tarnish the new pope's online identity.

Cadenhead said he didn't register the domain with money in mind, and vowed he wouldn't do anything with the address that would offend his Catholic grandmother. "I was more excited [at] the prospect of being right about the name than getting the domain. I was like, 'Woo hoo!' And then I said, 'Oh no, what have I done to my server?'"

After mulling his options, Cadenhead decided to give the domain to New York-based Modest Needs, an online charity that helps low-income families cover unplanned expenses. Cadenhead said he signed the domain over to the charity's founder, Keith Taylor, with the understanding that the group would transfer it to the Vatican if officials from the Holy See ever asked for the address.

Bill Ryan, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, declined to comment for this story. The Vatican Embassy in Washington directed all calls to the main Vatican media office, which was not immediately available for comment. The Vatican already maintains a rich Web site within .va, its own top-level Internet domain.

Visitors to BenedictXVI.com are greeted with a page explaining the mission of Modest Needs, along with a link to the official Vatican Web site for any users who may actually be looking for the official church site. Taylor said hits to his Web site have more than quintupled and donations have more than doubled since linking the site to BenedictXVI.com.

"This thing was moving so fast that if I went to another charity I admire -- say, the Red Cross -- by the time they were ready to do something, the traffic would have been gone," Cadenhead said.

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