At last, a dot.com in which you can place a little more faith than the all too ephemeral rest: www.lourdes-france.com, the website of the celebrated Roman Catholic shrine, has been attracting more than 10,000 cyber-pilgrims a day since its relaunch last month .

"It's a big, big success," Lourdes' IT manager, Philippe Leroux, said. "People can now petition for a prayer by email, see the celebrated grotto of Notre Dame on the webcam and tune in to the daily rosaries on live audio. If they're lucky, a priest will have selected their petition from the daily download and include it in his service."

More than 5m real pilgrims a year visit the small town in the foothills of the Pyrenees where, in 1858, the Virgin Mary apparently appeared 18 times in the Massabielle Grotto before Bernadette Soubirou. With 270 hotels and 13 campsites - more tourist beds than any French town except Paris - Lourdes caters to the faithful who flock there to sample its record of miracles.

Thousands suffering from afflictions as diverse as blindness and tumours claim to have recovered after a visit, although the church has classified only 66 as miracles.

To qualify, a cure must be declared "certain, definite and medically inexplicable" by a commission of 30 experts and submitted to the pilgrim's local bishop for ratification. The latest official miracle was announced last year, 12 years after a man was inexplicably cured of multiple sclerosis.

Mr Leroux said the 670-page multilingual website was not intended as a commercial exercise to drum up more business for Lourdes, but for communicating directly with pilgrimage organisers, Catholic believers, the plain curious, and "those who have no one else to turn to". It was also aimed at thwarting rogue Lourdes sites.

"Virtual pilgrimage can never be a substitute for the real thing," he said. "But it can be a help to the truly desperate. We get up to 60 requests for prayers a day, and I think people are comforted by being able to email the Virgin Mary."