Vatican (CWN) -- The Holy See will officially inaugurate a Vatican presence on the World Wide Web on March 30: Easter Sunday. The Vatican site -- http://www.vatican.va/ -- will feature all new Church documents in six languages, with Chinese and Arabic translations soon to be added to the English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
In a public presentation to the press today, the Vatican announced that the new site will include copies of texts by Pope John Paul II and his predecessors, documents published by the various Vatican congregations, and material from L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican Radio, the Vatican museums, and the Vatican press office itself.
Although the Vatican had maintained a quiet presence on the Internet for some months, available only to nunciatures and episcopal conferences, officials had hesitated to open the site for public use, fearing that the system might be overwhelmed by the volume of new inquiries. In a month of quiet testing, the Vatican was deluged with one million questions; operators of the site now expect to receive much more traffic, making the Vatican site one of the busiest on the World Wide Web.
As it will be established, the Vatican site will be operated by three powerful servers, including one devoted exclusively to security against malicious "hackers." Pope John Paul II has been described as "literally fascinated by the project," and insistent that the Church must make use of this powerful new means of communication.