The Mexican daily La Jornada reported this week that the Bishops’ Conference of Mexico will soon launch a news agency that will publish the statements by all the country’s bishops in order to prevent them from being manipulated by the mainstream media.

According to the newspaper, the Bishops’ Conference “seeks to open media offices in the 15 different pastoral regions in the country, in order to promote a Catholic multimedia center that will handle information on all issues—political, religious, human rights, among others—with the purpose of avoiding ‘the manipulation and the hammering’ the Catholic bishops receive because of their actions and statements.”

Father Julio Cesar Trujillo, spokesman of the Diocese of Orizaba in Veracruz, told La Jornada that the initiative to create a news agency is still just a proposal but various dioceses already have developed web pages that report on their pastoral activities.  According to Father Trujillo, the reason for establishing the 15 different media offices is “to have on hand accurate and fresh information about the Church’s activities.”