The Fides Agency is the newsletter of the Pontifical Missionary Works created by the Superior General Council of the Pontifical Work for the Propagation of the Faith.
Italy – Rome (13/09/2022 4:15 PM, Gaudium Press) During a meeting held last Saturday morning at the headquarters of Propaganda Fide, Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle handed over the document appointing the new director of Agenzia Fides to Gianni Valente.
The meeting was attended by Archbishop Giampietro Dal Toso and Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen, OFM Conv, secretary general of the Pontifical Missionary Union, until then director of Fides, as well as several members of the editorial staff of the Agency.
Who is Gianni Valente?
Born in Rome, Gianni Valente graduated in History of the Christian East at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the Second University of Rome Tor Vergata. He began working for the monthly magazine “30Giorni nella Chiesa e nel mondo” in May 1989.
In 1992 he became a professional journalist and continued working at 30Giorni until 2012, when it closed. In September of the same year, Valente began working at the Fides mission agency in the Propaganda Fide building. Gianni Valente has authored several books and essays.
Fides Agency: Newsletter of the Pontifical Missionary Works
Fides Agency, the newsletter of the Pontifical Missionary Works, was born on the initiative of the Superior General Council of the Pontifical Work for the Propagation of the Faith, inspired by the Apostolic Letter “Maximum Illud” of Pope Benedict XV dedicated to the activity carried out by missionaries in the world.
During the creation of Fides, Cardinal Guglielmo Van Rossum, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, announced and established in its statutes that it sought to offer “news of current affairs such as would be useful, not only for publications of missionary yearbooks and magazines, but also for the not specifically missionary press of each country”.
In addition to news from mission territories, Fides was to publish “studies on the current conditions of the missions and on religious and social themes of the missions themselves.” The first editions were written in English, French and Polish, to which were added editions in Italian, Spanish and German. Since 1998, Fides went online and added editions in Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic. Paper publications ceased in 2009 to concentrate efforts on online publishing. (EPC)
Compiled by Angelica Vecchiato