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Newsflash Archives > Top Ten People of 2007 - #5 Fr. Bernardo Cervellera
Top Ten People of 2007 - #5
Inside the Vatican has again chosen 10 men and women as its "Top Ten People of the Year." Profiles of each of the 10 will be published in the upcoming January issue of Inside the Vatican. Meanwhile, we will publish the profiles day by day in these email newsflashes, and on our Web site.
#1 - Francis Beckwith
#2 - Immacolata Solaro del Borgo
#3 - Sir Martin Gilbert
#4 - Brian Boyle
#5 - FR. BERNARDO CERVELLERA
By Wlodzimierz Redzioch
What are the most urgent problems of today’s world? Certainly they include the problem of the enormous growth of several Asian countries (among them the two giants, India and China) and with it new geopolitical concerns: the greater influence of oil-producing countries; confrontation with Islam, shaken by extremism and hostility towards the Western world; and the problem of democracy and religious freedom in large areas of the world. All these problems are especially connected with Asia, the world’s most populated continent, 4 billion inhabitants -- two-thirds of the world’s population.
The Church too pays particular attention to this continent. As early as 1995, John Paul II defined Asia as the continent of the future, the one that required the biggest effort to evangelize. Nowadays, media coverage of Asia has become indispensable. For four years, since November 1, 2003, there has been a reliable and competent source of information covering Asian affairs, the agency AsiaNews of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions, edited by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera.
It all started with a magazine founded by Fr. Piero Gheddo, a dynamic missionary and great journalist (he was a great master of journalism to Fr. Cervellera). As early as 1986, he realized not only that Asia would play an ever-greater role in the world, but also that there was a great need for missionaries on the Asian continent, where the Church was growing with difficulty.
A magazine was thus created to cover issues and events relating to Asia. AsiaNews was first a fortnightly, then, for economic reasons, a monthly review. In 2003, the superiors of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions asked Fr. Cervellera to turn the magazine into an online news agency, since the urgency of evangelization in Asia and the importance of this area were evident. On the feast of All Saints, November 1, 2003, the daily bulletin AsiaNews in Italian was launched. Encouraged by the immediate success of the edition in Italian, the editions in English and Chinese were added.
The need for an English edition was evident. More than 70% of the world’s communications occur in English as the lingua franca, or common language. Being able to offer AsiaNews articles in this language allowed the agency to communicate with major English and American news publications in addition to the Church in America and Africa.
It means that AsiaNews articles on Asian ecclesial communities allow those outside of Asia to share and know the fate and mission of their sister communities on the continent. Thus, information becomes a means of communion for them.
The transition to a website of daily news in three languages has borne fruit. Today the agency’s news reports are distributed by many other sites and media: from the BBC to al-Jazeera, from The New York Times to The South China Morning Post, from The Times to The National Catholic Register, to Avvenire, Il Giornale, Corriere della Sera, and La Repubblica.
There is also daily collaboration with Catholic and Protestant sites, including Catholic World News, Zenit, ICN, Christians Today, Christian Science Monitor, and also Inside the Vatican. Thanks to the republication of AsiaNews' reports by press agencies and newspapers, AsiaNews articles are reaching all parts of the globe. According to a study by the UCAN news agency, AsiaNews is the Catholic agency most cited by Catholic websites in China along with Vatican Radio, and this despite the fact that Chinese authorities often block it.
AsiaNews gives a great amount of space to understanding Islam and its problems, but especially to Benedict XVI’s Regensburg proposal as a basis for true dialogue without violence. In this field, contributions from the expert Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, who is appreciated by the pontiff himself, are fundamental.
However, Fr. Cervellera stresses that his work has a missionary motivation first and foremost. AsiaNews contributes to the mission of the Church by embracing and reaching out to the whole world with the Church’s message of universal salvation, and therefore of peace, justice and respect for human rights. The peoples of Asia urgently need this message.
Asia News has a staff of journalists and translators in Rome and about 30 correspondents in Asia: in China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and Cambodia. Most of them are Catholic journalists whose concern is to perceive reality, give information, and above all read events in the light of the Church’s mission. In four years of existence, AsiaNews, the small agency of PIME, has became an authoritative source of information and a point of reference for issues relating to Asia and its peoples, with millions of visitors and many links with international media.
That is why Fr. Bernardo Cervellera merits being named one of our "Top Ten" people of the year, and his agency merits our prayers and help.
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Inside The Vatican (ISSN 1068-8579) is a Catholic news magazine, published monthly except July
and September, with occasional special supplements.
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