The Catholic Church is planning to take another step into the Internet age. On Wednesday, it will launch a news information portal that aggregates the Vatican’s various media into a one-stop site for all things papal.
Pope Benedict XVI will launch the site with a click of a tablet device on June 28, the 60th anniversary of his ordination into the priesthood.
The pope has overseen a number of the Vatican’s new media efforts since he was elected in 2005, including the launch of a YouTube channel, the creation of “Pope2You” mobile and Facebook apps and encouraging priests to blog.
According to The New York Times, the new social-media equipped portal, will at first aggregate Vatican news in English and Italian with other languages to follow. It will also livestream papal events, play audio feeds from Vatican Radio, and give access to texts of papal homilies, statements and speeches.
While the rather-drab-by-comparison main Vatican site launched under Pope John Paul II in 1995 will remain active, Vatican officials are hopeful that the portal will help the Church better communicate with itself and the outside world alike.
“I think that we must educate the Roman Curia of what is the real meaning of communication,” Msgr. Claudio Maria Celli, who will maintain the portal, told The Times. “Little by little they will perceive that this is the real meaning to be present, to have a relevance.”
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