Christianity in Asia: how to keep informed via AsiaNews

AsiaNews has just celebrated its 10th anniversary and received the blessing of Pope Francis on its newly launched Spanish edition. If you want to keep informed about Christianity in Asia, and especially in China, visit their regularly updated website here. Its run by PIME, the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, and inspired by Blessed Pope John Paul II’s commitment to: ‘Asia, our common task for the Third Millenium’.

This is from a 2003 editorial explaining why the Italian website was now being launched in English and Chinese editions:

As of today, Dec. 3 2003,  www.asianews.it can be read in English and Chinese. We are very encouraged by the success of the AsiaNews on-line edition in Italian.

The need for an English edition is evident. More than 70% of our world’s communications occur in English as the lingua franca, or common language. Being able to offer AsiaNews articles in this language allows us to communicate with major English and American news publications, in addition to churches in America and Africa. Above all, it permits us to communicate with the churches in Asia which use English as an international communications tool. In this sense, AsiaNews articles on Asian ecclesial communities allows these very churches to share and know the fate and mission of their sister communities on the continent. Thus, information becomes a means of communion for them.

Yet we are even more enthusiastic about releasing our on-line edition in Chinese. We believe that this commitment is the most free-giving and missionary aspect of our news agency. It is free-giving, not only because it is economically onerous, but because it is nobly dedicated to China and her people.

Nowadays, curiosity about Christianity, the Church and Pope John Paul II is widespread among the Chinese populace – above all in university environments. A sociological study conducted by China’s Open University (Renmin Daxue) demonstrates that 61.5% of Peking’s students are interested in Christianity and want to be believers. The majority of them search for information on the Christian faith by way of literature. Since university students have internet access, we think that AsiaNews will help them to be familiar with the impact Christianity has on Asian and Chinese society. Already many Chinese intellectuals think China can be saved by Christianity, so as not to explode into a soulless market or a dictatorship that humiliates the individual. Hence our dedication is a missionary gesture.

The AsiaNews Chinese web-site serves as a means of information. Yet it is also serves as a way to make educational tips and suggestions via news, testimonials, reflections, and the words of the pope and church personalities –all of which all bolster the Church’s mission in China.

We wish to place the beginning of our mission on the internet under the protection of St. Francis Xavier, whose feast day we celebrate today (Dec. 3) and who died desiring to go to China. He is the patron of foreign missions and is venerated in China and throughout Asia.

This effectiveness – at a distance – adapts well to our brand of news service, while being far yet near to the heart of the Church in China and her people.

[Additional thoughts from a reader]:

AsiaNews.it, while it is a relatively good source on news about the Church in Asia, can frequently be supplemented, and sometimes is superceded by the coverage offered by http://www.ucanews.com/

The latter is updated more frequently, and the site is clean, easy to look at and also easier to navigate. I receive e-mail notifications almost everyday respecting updates. Language options include Chinese, Korean, Indonesian and Vietnamese. Sadly it doesn’t have a Japanese language option, but the national “Catholic Newspaper” here in Japan offers a news headlines and summaries on its own dedicated website. I write as a long-term resident of Japan – since 1976.