Chinese to become 8th Vatican website language (+ a sneaky tip)

From the Vatican Information Service bulletin:

"... for the occasion of the Solemnity of St. Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary and Patron of the Universal Church, the official website of the Holy See will be enhanced by the addition of a new section in Chinese".

Chinese "will be the eighth language to be represented on the www.vatican.va website, which also includes Italian, English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Latin.

"Thanks to the new service", the communique concludes, "internet users from throughout the world will be able to navigate in Chinese to access the texts of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI which will be available in both traditional and simplified Chinese characters".

Also, if you remember that picture I posted of the Vatican website "Obama-fied", you'll probably be interested in what the artist has decided to do - make it fully functional:

"since the mock-up was so popular, I've created a full-blown version with active links, a Web feed, and a few other nice features. I'm planning to keep the blog and the other elements regularly updated -- so people can basically use this as their "substitute" Vatican site. The full, working version is here." - Shaun Gallagher

Now don't get riled - I'm not suggesting a parallel Magisterium or anything! - just promoting a more accessible portal to find documents and information on the existing Vatican website. I think it could prove useful. Hey, it has an RSS feed.

And sorry, there's no way to avoid the occasional mention of "Benedict XVII". Yeah - Benedict the 17th!