Zenit News Agency

For other uses, see Zenit (disambiguation).

ZENIT is a non-profit news agency that reports on the Catholic Church and issues important to it from the perspective of Church doctrine. ZENIT's motto is, "The world seen from Rome."

Mission

The ZENIT website describes their perspective as one which is "convinced of the extraordinary richness of the Catholic Church's message, particularly its social doctrine ... [and which] sees this message as a light for understanding today's world." ZENIT's "compass is the social doctrine of the Church, summarized in the Compendium[1] published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace."[2]

The name "ZENIT" means "zenith" in many languages, and refers to the highest point in the sky reached by the sun, a symbol associated with Jesus Christ by early Christians.[3]

Presence

ZENIT began publication in 1997 and now publishes in seven languages. By its own account, ZENIT has 520,000 e-mail subscribers and its articles have been reprinted in more than 100,000 media sources.[3]

A number of Catholic authors such as Christopher West[4] have cited ZENIT stories in printed works.

Jesus Colina's Resignation

On Thursday, September 29, 2011, it was stated that Jesus Colina, Zenit's publisher, resigned voluntarily at the request of the sponsoring Legionaries of Christ because he felt they had not let Zenit set up separate financial mechanisms to be more readily fiscally transparent which they supposedly had earlier promised to do, and also because he felt they were too evasive, selective and partial about the actual results and implications of the sex scandal involving Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legion.

According to an online article by Catholic News Service (CNS) posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, John Thavis wrote, "The six editors of the Catholic news agency Zenit have resigned, saying the agency has become too closely identified with the Legionaries of Christ." The editors of Zenit's French, Italian, Spanish, English, Portuguese and Arabic services in a statement said, "The initial vision of Zenit was never to make it a service of a particular congregation, but rather of the universal church. This has been the spirit with which we have worked throughout the years, and the spirit we could not betray."[5]

Zenit announced on Oct 13, 2011 that Antonio Gaspari would be its new editorial coordinator.

Publisher

According to the ZENIT website, the organization's publications are published and edited by Innovative Media Inc., and ZENIT works directly or in collaboration with the following non-profits internationally: Fundación ZENIT España in Spain, Association ZENIT in France, ZENIT eV in Germany, and Asociacao ZENIT in Brazil.[3]

Innovative Media Inc. is a non-profit based in New York, according to ZENIT, and is registered as a non-profit organization in Atlanta, Georgia.[6][7][8] Its president is Antonio Maza.[9]

ZENIT says it was funded during its first three years in large part by Aid to the Church in Need, the Italian Bishops' Conference and the Legion of Christ.[10] As of 2007, ZENIT says it is funded 75% by reader donations and 13% by institutions and benefactors.[11]

A 2006 report in Commonweal magazine alleged that Innovative Media is a "front" for the Legion of Christ.[12]

See also

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, December 03, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.