kath.net

kath.net is an Austrian privately operated and privately financed online magazine that publishes daily news from the Roman Catholic Church as well as a press review of church-relevant topics. According to its own statement, its task is the 'dissemination of news from the Catholic world.' It was founded in 1999 and is not an official organ of the church: the former Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn, stated that the portal does not work on behalf of the Austrian Bishops' Conference and is not financed from church funds. The publication is run by the association kath.net, founded in 2000 and based in Gallneukirchen near Linz, described as a 'non-profit enterprise' that finances itself through donations and sponsors. Co-founders include Roland Noé (born Biermeier), who has worked full-time in organisation and editorial roles at kath.net since 2001, and his sister Petra Knapp-Biermeier. Another editorial staff member is Roland Noé's wife, Linda Noé. The editorial team also includes catechist Stefan Maria Bolli, Christoph Zeller-Zellenberg, Petra Lorleberg and Johannes Graf. Author and Vatican journalist Armin Schwibach works for the platform as Vatican correspondent. The editorial address is also the location of the Johanneszentrum, a facility operated under the joint sponsorship of kath.net and the association Amici di Dio. kath.net reports from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Roman Catholic Church in other parts of the world, and carries interviews with cardinals, bishops and personalities from that church. It also presents Vatican documents and Catholic books. The online magazine's main office is in Gallneukirchen, Austria, with further editorial staff working from Vienna, Graz and Munich as well as in Switzerland and Rome. A web forum formerly operated under the domain kathnews.com no longer existed as of February 2018. kath.net also operated the online encyclopedia Kathpedia, a 'project to build a free Catholic encyclopedia' committed to the Catholic faith. Kathpedia worked on the wiki principle and invited 'primarily Catholic Christians' to write collaboratively; by 2020, however, only a single user ('editor') worked regularly and frequently, with an administrator occasionally. Users who wrote contributions that did not match the operators' positions had their writing rights withdrawn without warning or discussion, with no appeals body. Kathpedia understood itself as a 'documentation project for the presentation of the Catholic faith.' It increasingly consisted of full texts from the period before the Second Vatican Council, transferred by text-recognition software, not checked for accuracy and therefore unreliable. Encyclopedic articles often consisted of strings of verbatim borrowings from older church and theological texts. A number of articles were almost verbatim copies of whole articles or larger sections of the German Wikipedia without attribution, making them plagiarism. Since December 2024, Kathpedia has no longer been reachable. kath.net is not an official church organ but a private initiative with a religious purpose. After the Austrian Bishops' Conference discontinued financial support for the project some years ago, it finances itself among other things from donations and profits from the sale of reader trips and advertisements, and until 2022 through subsidies from Kirche in Not (Church in Need), which also has media apostolate projects in its portfolio. In April 2022, kath.net announced that Kirche in Not had ended its support. In terms of content orientation, kath.net represents, by its own account, a conservative theological and socio-political standpoint intended to follow the guidelines of the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. The website presents itself as 'the voice of diaspora Catholics in the German-speaking area.' The editorial team of kath.

kath.net was founded in 1999 as a privately operated and privately financed online magazine in Austria, dedicated to daily reporting on the Roman Catholic Church. It is not an official church organ: the former Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn, stated that the portal does not work on behalf of the Austrian Bishops' Conference and is not financed from church funds. In 2000, the supporting association kath.net was founded, based in Gallneukirchen near Linz, described as a 'non-profit enterprise' that finances itself through donations and sponsors. Co-founders include Roland Noé (born Biermeier), who has worked full-time in organisation and editorial roles at kath.net since 2001, and his sister Petra Knapp-Biermeier. Another editorial staff member is Roland Noé's wife, Linda Noé. The editorial team also includes catechist Stefan Maria Bolli, Christoph Zeller-Zellenberg, Petra Lorleberg and Johannes Graf. Author and Vatican journalist Armin Schwibach works for the platform as Vatican correspondent. The editorial address is also the location of the Johanneszentrum, a facility operated under the joint sponsorship of kath.net and the association Amici di Dio. kath.net reports from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Roman Catholic Church in other parts of the world, and carries interviews with cardinals, bishops and personalities from that church. It also presents Vatican documents and Catholic books. The online magazine's main office is in Gallneukirchen, Austria, with further editorial staff working from Vienna, Graz and Munich as well as in Switzerland and Rome. A web forum formerly operated under the domain kathnews.com no longer existed as of February 2018. kath.net also operated the online encyclopedia Kathpedia, a 'project to build a free Catholic encyclopedia' committed to the Catholic faith. Kathpedia worked on the wiki principle and invited 'primarily Catholic Christians' to write collaboratively; by 2020, however, only a single user ('editor') worked regularly and frequently, with an administrator occasionally. Users who wrote contributions that did not match the operators' positions had their writing rights withdrawn without warning or discussion, with no appeals body. Kathpedia understood itself as a 'documentation project for the presentation of the Catholic faith.' It increasingly consisted of full texts from the period before the Second Vatican Council, transferred by text-recognition software, not checked for accuracy and therefore unreliable. Encyclopedic articles often consisted of strings of verbatim borrowings from older church and theological texts. A number of articles were almost verbatim copies of whole articles or larger sections of the German Wikipedia without attribution, making them plagiarism. Since December 2024, Kathpedia has no longer been reachable. kath.net is not an official church organ but a private initiative with a religious purpose. After the Austrian Bishops' Conference discontinued financial support for the project some years ago, it finances itself among other things from donations and profits from the sale of reader trips and advertisements, and until 2022 through subsidies from Kirche in Not (Church in Need), which also has media apostolate projects in its portfolio. In April 2022, kath.net announced that Kirche in Not had ended its support. In terms of content orientation, kath.net represents, by its own account, a conservative theological and socio-political standpoint intended to follow the guidelines of the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. The website presents itself as 'the voice of diaspora Catholics in the German-speaking area.' The editorial team of kath.net pursues, by its own statement, the goals of topicality, a content orientation committed to the church's magisterium, and the dissemination of information about church events. Certain church teaching positions are sometimes represented in an offensive manner. Authors who contributed to the theological profile of the website include Salzburg auxiliary bishop Andreas Laun and theologians Josef Spindelböck and Reto Nay, who in the meantime parted ways with kath.net in a dispute with Noé. Fulda bishop Heinz Josef Algermissen, auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Astana Athanasius Schneider ORC, who belongs to the Engelwerk, and Eichstätt bishop Gregor Maria Hanke have also contributed to kath.net. Recurring themes at kath.net are criticism of the church tax system and of the Synodaler Weg, which began in the German Catholic Church in 2019. Reports about church personalities are usually illustrated with a press photo; in the case of the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, and his predecessor, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the illustration is...

• 2024

  Since December 2024, Kathpedia is no longer reachable.

• 2022

  In April 2022, kath.net announces that Kirche in Not has ended its support.

• 2019

  Synodaler Weg begins in the German Catholic Church; kath.net becomes a recurring critic.

• 2018

  Web forum formerly under kathnews.com no longer exists as of February 2018.

• 2001

  Roland Noé begins full-time work in organisation and editorial at kath.net.

• 2000

  Supporting association kath.net founded, based in Gallneukirchen near Linz.

• 1999

  kath.net founded as a privately operated and financed online magazine in Austria.

Conservative Catholic online news magazine presenting itself as 'the voice of diaspora Catholics in the German-speaking area'; privately run, not an official church organ.

• kath.net online magazine

  Daily news from the Roman Catholic Church and a press review of church-relevant topics.

• kath.net archive

  Archive of over 70,000 articles searchable on the website.

• Kathpedia

  Former online encyclopedia ('project to build a free Catholic encyclopedia'), no longer reachable since December 2024.

1. 1kath.net official websitekath.net
2. 2kath.net news pagekath.net
3. 3Wikidata Q1735851wikidata.org
4. 4Kath.net – Wikipedia (German)de.wikipedia.org