UCA News

About UCA News

The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN, widely known as UCA News) is a Catholic news agency covering issues and matters of interest to the Catholic Church on the Asian continent. It was launched in Hong Kong in 1979 by Maryknoll Father Robert Astorino and has since become one of the largest Catholic news agencies in the world, and the largest in Asia. The agency operates bureaus across East, South and Southeast Asia, including an India operation based in New Delhi, and publishes its primary English-language website at ucanews.com alongside foreign-language sites in China, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam and local English sites for India and the Philippines. It is owned by Union of Catholic Asian News Limited.

Founding by Father Robert Astorino

UCA News was founded in 1979 by Maryknoll Father Robert Astorino, an American Catholic priest who had gone to Hong Kong in 1971. After language studies, Astorino joined a Maryknoll team researching the situation of youth — many of them children of refugees from mainland China — in the Kwun Tong area of Kowloon. Astorino, who held graduate degrees in sociology from Fordham University and in journalism from Columbia University, both in New York City, concluded that the churches of Asia needed a means of communicating their experiences and missions with one another without passing through Western filters.

After conducting a feasibility study on church information needs across Asia, Astorino launched UCA News in 1979 to provide news of and for the Catholic Church in Asia. A principal goal of its reporting, from the start, was to bring the lives and experiences of Asian Catholics to their brothers and sisters in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Astorino served as the agency's executive director for 30 years, building it from a Hong Kong startup into a continent-wide news network before retiring. He died on 26 June 2020 at the age of 77. Catholic News Service's director and editor-in-chief Greg Erlandson called him "a giant of the international Catholic press" who had provided trustworthy news on the emerging church in Asia to the larger Catholic world.

Growth into Asia's largest Catholic news agency

From its Hong Kong base, UCAN expanded steadily across the continent. By the time of Astorino's retirement, the agency had established 14 news bureaus covering 22 countries, a scale that made it the largest Catholic news agency in Asia and one of the largest in the world. Its bureaus have been reported in Bangladesh, China, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

The agency's model combined professional journalism with a church mission: a network of journalists and editors spanning the region, producing news, features, commentary, analysis and multimedia content on the social, political and religious developments affecting the Catholic Church in Asia. Its LinkedIn profile describes a company of 201–500 employees in the newspaper publishing industry, based in Hong Kong.

Editorial focus and audience

UCA News covers the Catholic Church in Asia — its dioceses, bishops' conferences, religious orders, lay movements, schools, hospitals and social ministries — alongside the wider political and social developments that affect Catholic life, from religious-freedom disputes and interfaith relations to migration, poverty and conflict. Its reporting interprets the Catholic Church as the body of all Catholic believers, with a stated focus on the challenges and joys of ordinary people striving to put their faith into practice by helping those less fortunate.

The agency's convergent-media approach couples traditional journalistic practice with multimedia and social media distribution. Its principal audiences are Catholics in Asia and the Asian Catholic diaspora, but its reporting is also read by journalists, researchers, diplomats and church officials worldwide who rely on it as a window on Asian Catholicism. The agency hosts a Catholic directory for several Asian countries, giving readers detailed information on local dioceses.

The India operation and the New Delhi bureau

UCA News operates an India bureau based in New Delhi, serving as its South Asia reporting hub. The India operation produces local and international English-language content for Indian readers through the agency's dedicated India site, covering the Indian Catholic Church — its archdioceses and dioceses, religious congregations, educational and healthcare institutions, and lay organisations — as well as Indian social and political developments as they affect Christian communities.

India is one of the agency's most important national operations: it is home to one of Asia's largest Catholic populations, with major archdioceses in cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa and Kochi, and the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Eastern Catholic churches headquartered in Kerala. UCA News's India reporting has covered subjects including anti-conversion legislation in Indian states, attacks on churches and Christian institutions, the church's extensive school and hospital networks, and the participation of Indian Catholics in public life. The New Delhi bureau also contributes to the agency's regional South Asia coverage, including its bureaus and stringers in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Language editions and digital platforms

Beyond its primary English website, UCA News operates foreign-language sites in China, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam, publishing in the languages of those countries' Catholic communities. It also runs two sites offering local and international English-language content tailored to readers in India and the Philippines — the two Asian countries with the largest English-speaking Catholic audiences.

The agency's digital strategy has emphasised social media distribution alongside its websites. During the final quarter of 2019, when the agency was riven by an internal dispute (see below), its social media platforms were reported to have reached 3.5 million people with more than 1.3 million engagements — an indication of the scale of its online audience even amid institutional turmoil.

The 2019 leadership crisis

In 2019, UCA News was shaken by a serious internal conflict. In the third week of September, Jesuit Father Michael Kelly, chairperson of UCAN Ltd and UCAN Services Ltd — who had succeeded Astorino as the agency's second executive director — announced the appointment of George Iype, a Catholic layman from India, as the new chief executive officer effective 1 October, and the board's decision to end the term of the serving executive director, Peter Monthienvichienchai of Thailand, on 30 September.

Early the following month, two websites appeared offering news in the agency's name — ucanews.org, relaunched by Iype's team after Monthienvichienchai refused to hand over the original ucanews.com domain, and uca.news, started by Monthienvichienchai himself. Readers and associates expressed confusion and shock at the split. Maryknoll Father Bill Grimm, Kelly's partner on the two-member UCAN board and the agency's publisher, wrote to readers that a former employee had floated a company in Bangkok called UCANEWS Company Limited and "illegally hijacked" the ucanews.com domain name, and said legal action had been initiated to recover it.

Resolution of the ownership dispute

The domain dispute was resolved in January 2020 with the intervention of an international body. On 10 January 2020, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), acting as the domain-name dispute service provider, decided to transfer the domains ucanews.com and uca.news to a Hong Kong-based company — restoring the original ucanews.com domain to the agency's Hong Kong ownership. Monthienvichienchai said the original domain had been registered in his name after he took over as executive director and that he had transferred it to the Thai Church for safekeeping, explaining that UCAN's operation in Thailand could only receive donor funding with the acknowledgement of the local church. He also said he had started uca.news to fill the gap in news coverage during the last quarter of 2019.

With the domains recovered, the agency consolidated its operations under its Hong Kong ownership and continued publishing at ucanews.com. The episode remains a notable chapter in the agency's history — a rare public split in a church news organisation, resolved through international domain-dispute arbitration.

Current status

As of 2026, UCA News remains active as the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia, based in Hong Kong and publishing through ucanews.com and its language and national editions. Its network of journalists and editors across East, South and Southeast Asia continues to produce daily news, features and analysis on the Catholic Church and on the social and political developments affecting Catholic communities. The New Delhi bureau continues to anchor its India and South Asia coverage, reporting on one of the world's largest and most diverse Catholic populations for readers across Asia and the global Catholic diaspora.