Aleteia

Yet, the Catholic-Christian galaxy of the media universe is huge, especially on the Internet, with myriads of blogs, websites, Facebook and Twitter accounts. but these are usually local initiatives and most of the time limited to single viewers, parishes, small organizations, and dioceses. In actual fact, Christian voices and ideas are poorly represented by the mainstream media that shape our contemporary culture. initiatives locales

The Internet does offer excellent Christian content , but with all the search tools we have,it takes time and persistence to find those "pearls," and when we do manage to find answers to questions about faith, life, social issues, or current events, we do not always know who the author is and whether the information is reliable or not.

Most of us would agree, that transmitting the faith to the next generations is increasingly challenging,even though it is an opportunity to proclaim the most exciting and luminous message there is! Not to mention our long heritage of personal stories and a long line of Christian witnesses. No other religion or belief system can match the scope of the Gospel and its promises.

An Opportunity The digital revolution is changing the world we live in at a rapid pace, giving the Church an extraordinary opportunity to adapt the way it communicates. The Internet already has 2.4 billion usersand is now penetrating into places previously closed to the outside world. It is the great media tool of the future, towards which all other media converge (TV, video, image, sound, text, animation, etc.). The Internet is a challenge for the Church, but it is—above all—afantastic opportunity for spreading the faith, , especially to the youth, since the only way to reach young people is to meet them where they are—and they are on the Internet!

The Challenge The challenge lies in establishing an efficient coordination and collaboration inside the Church. A few years back, when communication was mainly local, you could meet the expectations of the faithful in each diocese with the diocesan newspaper or the radio, or the publications of large local religious movements. But today, the world is profoundly different. Some major media like the Internet, the film or television industries are by nature global media—mere local dioceses and movements cannot create an international website or TV channel alone. There is an urgent need to find a way to combine our forces and collaborateusing all the means we have at our disposal—in complete fidelity to the Church and her leaders, in order to successfully meet the challenge posed by the Internet and the digital world.

Our Lord Jesus Christ left us this prayer: “Father, may they all be one, so that the world may believe”(John 17: 21) The need for collaboration is certainly spiritual, but it is also practical, especially when the task involves the Internet. Our most important aim is to have the top referencing on Google, through a multiplicity of links all pointing to one place. If 10 or 20% of the Christian galaxy of websites set up links towards a common international and collaborative media, the latter would automatically be well referenced by search engines. No other community in the world has such potential and it is within our reach.

The discussions of the FEM since 2010 have concluded that theALETEIA Project is a top priority and that it is crucial to launch it and develop it as quickly as possible. We must unite the efforts of all the people and movements involved in evangelizing through the media to create a collaborative platform that will carry Christian voices and ideas on the Internet and the world of the media in a powerful way. Aleteia was specifically designed to accomplish this.

Our Network Aleteia's first major advantage is its network of more than 1,000 media and Church institutions already established in 15 countries that support and participate in the project. Aleteia will rely on that network and onhundreds of expertswho have agreed to offer their collaboration and provide 50 new content items daily in 6 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Arabic, followed by German and Russian in 2014. The network will ultimately includehundreds of thousands of active members involved in the New Evangelization online and offline.

This important workflow is unique in the religious world. It is progressively picking up speed, bringing us closer to reaching the same level as the top existing media.Eventually we will even become their competitors although our editorial team is much smaller. This feat will be made possible thanks to the daily production of our experts, bloggers and contributors (20%) and that of the whole Christian network (80%), with the help of Aleteia network's active members (rating and archiving of pearls).

By developing this effort of aggregating, selecting and broadcasting productions of the Christian network with professionalism, reliability and openness, and by providing excellent customer satisfaction, Aleteia seeks to become the focal point of the Christian world on the Internet and a trusted partner. The idea is to establish a genuine trust agreement with Internet users and the Christian community, saving them time by helping them find the best resources (videos, articles, websites), but also and eventually the best products or services (advertising & e-commerce), as well as the most promising Christian projects that need our support (through our time and donations).

A close partnership with Google To successfully meet these goals, technological development is of course essential. Aleteia signed a technical and commercial agreement with Google and its partners in Italy, that have truly unique technology tools at their disposal as well as the best professional solutions to help generate advertising, e-commerce and marketing revenues that will make this activity profitable and ensure its development. “Google is proud to bring the best of its technology, to contribute to building something exceptional, unprecedented and unique.” (Luaca Giuratrabocchetta – manager of Google Entreprise Italy)

A highly experienced team and multiple supports

Aleteia's editorial manager is Jesùs Colina, who was the founder of ZENIT and H2Onews, and who has been working in Rome for 17 years in the media in the service of the Church. He is assisted by a highly experienced team coordinated by Harold Fickett (American, former CEO of Catholic Exchange), with a qualified editorial director for each language and a high-level Editorial Committee.

Aleteia's general manager is Andrea Salvati, the former top manager of Google Italy, who has experience as leader and media worker, and who was the advertising sales director of Google Italy for six years. He is assisted by a team of highly skilled developers and by people with all the necessary competence to develop this project (communication, partnerships, marketing, sales, human resources, administration, legal and financial advisers, and the AdEthic subsidiary).

Significant support from the Church hierarchy
Aleteia has the support of many Church officials and actively works with several ecclesial movements and Pontifical Councils, such as the Pontifical Council for Social Communications (FEM), for the New Evangelization (patronage), for Culture (Courtyard of the Gentiles), Cor Unum (Deus Caritas Est Project), for the laity (Rosary on St Peter’s Square), with CTV, Vatican Radio,WYD, etc.

The Aleteia Project is also integrated into the Evangelization Marian Centers currently being developed in Israel (Nazareth), Mexico (Guadalupe), Brazil (Aparecida), Lebanon (Qattara) and hopefully soon in Russia, Austria, the USA, France, Italy, Poland, Rwanda and the Philippines.

A project that is collaborative by nature Aleteia is not supported by one movement in particular, but by a collaborative gathering of the most important movements involved in evangelization and the media, through the FEM, which already gathers several prominent players and is about to welcome many more. This is extremely important to note: a wide open type of collaborative project would be impossible to achieve without a common structure to carry it out collectively.

Goals: Aleteia is expecting 30 million unique visitors per month. Everything is being put into place right now so that these goals can be met, but it is clear that nothing can happen without real commitment and true support from a great number of bishops, priests, and faithful.. Indeed this project cannot be successful unless it truly reflects the world's Christian Community and unless that community really wants the Gospel values to be heard better in the world via the new tools brought by the digital age. We want to thank you for everything you can do to contribute to the success of this vast collaborative project, which has never been attempted before on the Internet. By participating in the Aleteia challenge, you help spread the Christian message, so it may be heard to the ends of the Earth!

Spreading the faith, especially to the youth, is clearly an issue for our civilization. What kind of world do we want to give to our children? Aleteia is the first project to have the ambition to answer the urgent call for a new evangelization today by creating a leading international media tool on the Internet. We have no competition at the present time, even though the need is clearly felt, probably because of the difficulty of immediately addressing this need and bringing together so many assets! The time is favorable right now and we must seize this opportunity for the Church.

If we could just envision the impact of a reliable and reputable website, known on every continent, with contents of great quality, validated and well- written, on all the top current events and issues related to religion, life and our society, regularly coming up first in Google searches! In the Arabic world and China, where missionaries face considerable opposition, in the East as in the West, where Christians are marginalized, such a website would be a major game changer.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture, gave us his warm encouragement: “We must direct our efforts to the 6th continent. Your project has the potential to meet this challenge.[...] What also stands out for me is a convergence of all ecclesial entities around your project. In this regard, the FEM can be seen as one of the fruits of the Pontifical Council for Culture’s efforts over these past years.”
(FEM weekend workshop 2013 – January 27th)