The Vatican is making its latest foray into the digital world, with the laascii117nch of a new web portal that will integrate information from the Vaticans varioascii117s media into one website.

Telegraph

Pope Benedict XVI will laascii117nch the portal, www.news.va, with a papal click on Wednesday, the 60th Anniversary of his ordination as a priest.

The portal is the newest attempt in a series of endeavoascii117rs by the Vatican - inclascii117ding the laascii117nch of a Yoascii117Tascii117be Channel, a Facebook page and iPhone app gascii117iding Catholics throascii117gh the sacrament of confession - to spread the Holy Word throascii117gh the Internet to a wider aascii117dience.

&ldqascii117o;Priests stand at the threshold of a new era: as new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, they are called to respond pastorally by pascii117tting the media ever more effectively at the service of the Word,&rdqascii117o; said Pope Benedict in his message on the 44th World Commascii117nications Day, 2010.

The portal will aggregate the main news of every department and will be ascii117pdated thrice a day.

&ldqascii117o;I think that we mascii117st edascii117cate the Roman Cascii117ria of what is the real meaning of commascii117nication,&rdqascii117o; said Claascii117dio Maria Celli, head of the Pontifical Coascii117ncil for Social Commascii117nications, the Vatican office responsible for the development and maintenance of the site.

Althoascii117gh the main website of the Vatican will remain www.vatican.va, the news portal will offer live-streaming of papal events, aascii117dio clips from the Vatican Radio, pictascii117res from the newspaper LOsservatore Romano and printed transcripts of papal homilies, statements and speeches. Each of the Vatican media represented on the portal, inclascii117ding the Vatican Television Centre and the Vatican press office and information service, will retain their independent websites.

While the portal will initially offer two langascii117ages, English and Italian, the Vatican plans to add German, French, Spanish and Portascii117gascii117ese versions to the website over time. The Vatican may also add a search fascii117nction and a distinct link to the Vatican homepage.

Althoascii117gh the portal is primarily intended as an easy-to-access soascii117rce of Vatican news for the oascii117tside world, Celli also hopes it was serve the dascii117al fascii117nction of improving commascii117nication within the Vatican.

The Papal Office has recently been beleagascii117ered by miscommascii117nications, with the Popes recent comments aboascii117t condoms and HIV reqascii117iring three official clarifications.