''InfoVaticana'' is a religious website based in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, covering topics about the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Founded in 2013 by Gabriel Ariza and Fernando Beltrán, the website describes itself as trying to "fill a gap in the rigorous analysis of what happens in the Church". Information is published in two languages; the

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

and the

Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about ...

. The website takes a Vaticanist approach, discussing current affairs within the Church from an orthodox Catholic point of view. During the reign of

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

, the website has had legal action taken against it by the

Vatican City Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—' * german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ') * pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—' * pt, Cidade do Vati ...

for use of symbols related to the Vatican.

History

''InfoVaticana'' was founded as a business with a balance of around 2,000 euros by Gabriel Ariza and was registered in the Mercantile Registry of Madrid in November 2013. Ariza is the son of

Julio Ariza Julio Ariza Irigoyen, born in Carcastillo, Navarra, Spain in 1957 is a Spanish entrepreneur who currently chairs the Grupo Intereconomia. He was part of the Spanish People's Party in Catalonia with Alejo Vidal-Quadras and an MP in the regional ...

, who was previously a Member of the

Parliament of Catalonia The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...

for the

Spanish People's Party The People's Party ( es, Partido Popular ; known mostly by its acronym, PP ) is a conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Spain. The People's Party was a 1989 re-foundation of People's Alliance (AP), a party led by former m ...

and has since been the owner of the '' Intereconomía Group''. Since 2013, ''InfoVaticana'' has stood out as an information portal about the Catholic Church, with a clear orienatation towards doctrinal orthodoxy. They have covered various news of some importance in the national ecclesiastical sphere: from the situation of the channel 13tv (belonging to the

Spanish Episcopal Conference The Spanish Episcopal Conference ( es, Conferencia Episcopal Española, ca, Conferència Episcopal Espanyola) is an administrative institution composed of all the bishops of the dioceses of Spain and Andorra, in communion with the Roman Pontiff a ...

), or the controversial election of the last president of the '' Asociación Católica de Propagandistas'' and the judicial process of the "miguelianos" group. Although ''InfoVaticana'' began publishing in Spanish, in May 2015 the creation of an Italian version was announced. Gabriel Ariza, director of InfoVaticana, explained this decision to ''Religión en Libertad'': "The number of readers who follow us from Italy has not stopped increasing, and Italian is today the universal language of the Church: a large part of the more than five thousand bishops in the world have studied in Rome and many priests know that language well and completely ignore Spanish, so the Italian edition will be for them a way to get closer to the reality of the Church." In August 2017, ''InfoVaticana'' received a notification from the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

-based law firm ''

Baker McKenzie Baker McKenzie is an international law firm located in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1949, originally named Baker & McKenzie. It now has 77 offices in 46 countries. It employs 4,809 attorneys total, and approximately 13,000 employees tot ...

'' on behalf of the

Vatican Secretariat of State The Secretariat of State (Latin: ''Secretaria Status''; Italian: ''Segreteria di Stato'') is the oldest dicastery in the Roman Curia, the central papal governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. It is headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State ...

Pietro Parolin Pietro Parolin OMRI (, ; born 17 January 1955) is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. A cardinal since February 2014, he has served as the Vatican's Secretary of State since October 2013 and a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers sin ...

, asking them to transfer the domain to it, and stop using symbology related to the Vatican as it could be considered "a violation of the intellectual property of the Vatican. The case is part of a legal debate over whether the Holy See can claim full ownership of the "Vatican" brand and its derivatives.

Political positions

Agence France-Presse characterizes InfoVaticana as conservative and critical of

Content

In addition to having their respective sections of blogs and news, ''InfoVaticana'' has the following sections: *Formation: with articles related to the Catholic faith, catechesis, prayers,

Marian devotions Marian devotions are external pious practices directed to the person of Mary, mother of God, by members of certain Christian traditions. They are performed in Catholicism, High Church Lutheranism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Orie ...

, etc. *Profiles: of Spanish bishops, cardinals and members of the Roman Curia. *Interviews: this section includes various digital interviews organized from the portal. This section includes interviews with readers by personalities such as

Santiago Abascal Santiago Abascal Conde (; born 14 April 1976) is a Spanish politician and since September 2014 the leader of the national-conservative political party Vox. Abascal is a member of the Congress of Deputies representing Madrid since 2019. Before ...

Contributors

Currently, Infovaticana hosts several blogs on its website, highlighting: * ''La Cigüeña de la Torre'': in which Francisco José Fernández de la Cigoña (aka "Paco Pepe"), Spanish secularist, commentator, writer. * ''El Olivo'': of Fr. Tomás de la Torre Lendínez, diocesan priest of Jaén * ''Ite Ad Ioseph'': Blog of the Barcelona Catholic group ''Hijos de San José'', youth section of the Youth Association of San José. * The Blog of Fr. Manuel Guerra Gómez, priest and doctor in classical philology and patristic theology. * The Blog of Fr.

José Antonio Fortea José Antonio Fortea Cucurull (born in Barbastro, Spain, October 11, 1968) also known as Father Fortea is a Spanish writer, and a Roman Catholic priest of the diocese of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). He was appointed an exorcist in the past, but is ...

, Spanish exorcist, priest in Alcalá de Henares. * The Blog of Fr. José Luis Aberasturi, former professor, Fomento-Fundación chaplain, philologist, philosopher and moral theologian. * ''Adoración y Liberación'': of the same name as the web portal founded by Vicente Montesinos, judicial officer, linked to various initiatives within the Catholic Church (catechesis, formation, youth, etc.). Also published are Spanish translations of articles by Italian ecclesiastical analyst

Sandro Magister Sandro Magister (born 2 October 1943) is an Italian journalist who writes for the magazine ''L'espresso''. Magister specializes in religious news, in particular on the Catholic Church and the Vatican. He has written two books on the political h ...

, and the American religious information magazine ''

The Catholic Thing Robert Royal (b. December 21, 1949

''.

References

{{Reflist

External links