AsiaNews is an official press agency of the Catholic Church's Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME). [1] [2] The editor-in-chief of AsiaNews is Father Bernardo Cervellera, [3] a PIME missionary [1] who also heads Agenzia Fides, the official news agency of the Vatican. [4] Prominent British Bangladeshi journalist and human rights activist William Gomes worked for Asia news. [5] [6]
News from AsiaNews is republished by the Catholic press agencies MISNA and Zenit. [7] Originally available in the Italian language, the website has since expanded into English and Chinese in 2003 to enhance the "missionary aspect of our news agency". [7] AsiaNews's intended audience is Chinese university students, who it believes are "curi[ous] about 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 in Chinese schools and the "persecution" of Christians in China. [7] AsiaNews describes itself as "a great accomplishment in evangelization, which is the work of God" [2] and as "bolster[ing] the [Roman Catholic] Church's mission in China". [7] The AsiaNews has professional correspondents from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vatican, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, and Russia, among other countries.
The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples was a congregation of the Roman Curia of the Catholic Church in Rome, responsible for missionary work and related activities. It is also known by its former title, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, or simply the Propaganda Fide. On 5 June 2022, it was merged with the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization into the Dicastery for Evangelization.
A Christian mission is an organized effort to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work, in the name of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries, and historically may have been based in mission stations. When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they undertake mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips: short-term, long-term, relational and those that simply help people in need. Some people choose to dedicate their whole lives to mission.
The Catholic Church in Thailand is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
Christians in Bangladesh account for 0.30% of the nation's population as of 2022 census. Together with Judaism and Buddhism, they account for 1% of the population. Islam accounts for 91.04% of the country's religion, followed by Hinduism at 7.95% as per 2022 census.
Christianity in China has been present since the early medieval period and it has gained a significant amount of influence during the last 200 years.
The Catholic Church in China has a long and complicated history. John of Montecorvino was the first Catholic missionary to reach China proper and first bishop of Khanbaliq during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368).
The Catholic Church in Bangladesh is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the pope in Rome. As of 2016, there are approximately 350,000, approximately 0.2 percent of the population of Bangladesh. About 60% of Catholics come from "tribals", members of minority tribes. By 2022, there were 400,000 Catholics in the country. Bangladesh is otherwise a predominantly Muslim country.
The Catholic Church in Mongolia is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the pope in Rome. The country comes under the province of Colombo and is made up of 12 dioceses including one archdiocese. There are approximately 1.2 million Catholics in Sri Lanka representing around 6.1% of the total population. Later estimates suggest that there are over 1.6 million in 2020.
The Catholic Church in Nepal is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. As of 2011 there are over 10,000 Catholics in Nepal, organized into one Catholic jurisdiction known as an apostolic vicariate.
The Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions or PIME is a society of secular priests and lay people who dedicate their lives to missionary activities in: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong, India, Ivory Coast, Japan, Mexico, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines and Thailand.
Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, parishes and dioceses would be organized worldwide, often after an intermediate phase as an apostolic prefecture or apostolic vicariate. Catholic mission has predominantly been carried out by the Latin Church in practice.
John Tong Hon is a prelate of the Catholic Church from Hong Kong. A cardinal since 2012, he was auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong from 1996 to 2008, then coadjutor bishop of the diocese for a year, and Bishop of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2017. In January 2019, he became the apostolic administrator of the diocese, in a caretaker role, after the death of his successor, Michael Yeung.
The Martyrs of Japan were Christian missionaries and followers who were persecuted and executed, mostly during the Tokugawa shogunate period in the 17th century. More than 400 martyrs of Japan have been recognized with beatification by the Catholic Church, and 42 have been canonized as saints.
Holy See–Vietnam relations are foreign relations between the Holy See and Vietnam.
Christianity in the 20th century was characterized by an accelerating secularization of Western society, which had begun in the 19th century, and by the spread of Christianity to non-Western regions of the world.
The Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century had to respond to the challenge of increasing secularization of Western society and persecution resulting from great social unrest and revolutions in several countries. It instituted many reforms, particularly in the 1970s under the Vatican II Council, in order to modernize practices and positions. In this period, Catholic missionaries in the Far East worked to improve education and health care, while evangelizing peoples and attracting numerous followers in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
Bishop Peter Joseph Fan Xueyan was a Chinese Roman Catholic priest and bishop who lived in China during the 20th century. He was bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Baoding.
Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on the issues of gender identity and transgender people. Christian denominations vary in their official position: some explicitly support gender transition, some oppose it, and others are divided or have not taken an official stance. Within any given denomination, individual members may or may not endorse the official views of their church on the topic.
The relations between the Holy See and Japan were informally established in 1919, when the Japanese government accepted a request by the Holy See to send an apostolic delegate to their country. It was not until 1942 that Japan began full diplomatic relations between the two states, making Japan the first Asian country to do so, and not until 1958 that the Japanese mission to the Vatican in Rome was upgraded to an embassy. The decision was made by Emperor Showa during World War II, hoping that the Vatican could serve as a mediator for negotiations between Japan and the Allies.