On Tuesday the Vatican announced that as of this July 31, the Vatican Information Service (VIS) will cease to exist as a separate office providing information distinct from the Bulletin of the Holy See Press Office.
There will, however, be a Press Office Bulletin. Some of the VIS staff will be transferred to work on the multilingual news.va portal, which was established a year ago. Others will be employed in the multilingual development of the Press Office Bulletin.
The Vatican news portal provides a daily service in Italian, English, Spanish and French. Up to now the Press Office Bulletin has mainly been published principally in Italian, unless the original texts were in other languages, while VIS has published not only in Italian but also in English, French and Spanish.
The archive of more than 85,000 articles in various languages, produced by VIS in more than twenty years of activity, will be available on the Web site of the Press Office.
Vatican Radio also announced changes. In the words of its director-general, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, from July 1 there will be: “A new chapter in the history of Vatican Radio.”
Vatican Radio will discontinue much of its medium and short wave broadcasts, with the exception of countries in poorer regions of the world. It will, instead, devote greater resources to Web-based services, satellite transmissions, and other new communications technologies.