The Vatican re-launched its website Thursday, opening up its online teachings to a wider variety of Asian worshippers by adding a new section in Chinese.
The Vatican's website, www.vatican.va, already contained Italian, English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Latin sections.
The new section, which features both traditional and simplified Chinese characters, was welcomed by Chinese Catholics who said the move would allow the church to connect more directly with its worshippers.
Church authorities have accused Beijing in the past of blocking the faithful's access to the pope's messages in the same way that Chinese authorities occasionally block foreign news sites.
Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government are long strained.
Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.
Beijing appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church.
Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church, with bishops loyal to the pope.
However Catholics in both Europe and Asia were quick to play down the friction on Thursday.
Father Roberto Giannatelli, Professor at the Mass Media Faculty of the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome, said he believed the website's regulators would be mindful of "the legitimate needs of the Chinese government and will do their best to avoid misunderstandings".
APTN