Vatican City, Mar 19, 2010 / 08:16 am
The Holy See now offers access to the Catholic Catechism in Chinese through its official website. The service reaches out to millions of Chinese Catholics.
Written completely in traditional Chinese characters, the entire Catechism can be found on the Church's website, www.vatican.va.
According to a note recognizing the new service in L'Osservatore Romano, the translated texts of documents from the Second Vatican Council and the Code of Canon Law will also be made available on the site in the coming months.
Chinese is one of eight languages in which the Holy See now offers information.
The most recent statistics, from the Faith Institute for Cultural Studies in Dec. 2009, put the number of Catholics in mainland China at nearly six million in the Asian nation, but the Hong Kong-based Holy Spirit Institute reports the number is at 12 million. The faithful are served by around 3,000 bishops, priests and deacons.