''AsiaNews'' is an official
press agency
A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswi ...
of the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
's
Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME).
The
editor-in-chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...
of AsiaNews is
Father
A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological fat ...
Bernardo Cervellera,
a PIME
missionary who also heads
Agenzia Fides, the official news agency of the
Vatican. Prominent British Bangladeshi journalist and human rights activist William Gomes worked for Asia news.
Description
News from AsiaNews is republished by the Catholic press agencies
MISNA and
Zenit.
Originally available in the
Italian language
Italian (, , or , ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. It evolved from the colloquial Latin of the Roman Empire. Italian is the least divergent language from Latin, together with Sardinian language, Sardinian. It is ...
, the website has since expanded into English and Chinese in 2003 to enhance the "missionary aspect of our news agency".
AsiaNews's intended audience is
Chinese university students, who it believes are "curi
usabout Christianity" and may save China from being "a soulless market or ... dictatorship". It describes its presence as "urgent" because of what it calls the "empowerment" of
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...
in Chinese schools and the "persecution" of
Christians in China.
AsiaNews describes itself as "a great accomplishment in
evangelization, which is the work of God"
and as "bolster
ngthe
oman CatholicChurch's mission in China".
The AsiaNews has professional
correspondents from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vatican, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, and Russia, among other countries.
References
External links
Official website
{{Authority control
Asian news websites
Christian missions in China
Catholic Church in China
Vatican City news websites