To our UCA News Readers and Friends

Several months ago, I wrote to you to explain that the www.ucanews.com domain name had been stolen and that our news and commentary would appear on www.ucanews.org.

Unfortunately, many of our readers and friends were not able to receive that news because if they went as usual to the hijacked ucanews.com site, they were, in effect, "kidnapped" and brought to a counterfeit site that masqueraded as UCAN.

Those of you who were brought there probably noticed after a short while that the "news" reports that appeared were often simply picked up from other news sites. In addition, columnists and features that you have come to expect were not available. If you wrote to comment, complain or question, your messages went to the thieves and were ignored.

We are happy to announce that following a legal procedure, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has rescued the UCAN domain name www.ucanews.com and "liberated" those of you who have been unwittingly and unwillingly deprived of access to the real UCAN. You can see the WIPO verdict here.

Welcome back. We missed you, and we hope you missed us. Now that the situation has been satisfactorily rectified after a too-long delay we can once again be your source of news of and for the Church in Asia.

During your forced absence, besides missing UCAN's usual mix of news, features and commentary, you were deprived of our coverage of the visit to Thailand and Japan by Pope Francis. UCAN produced more than 50 articles in connection with that visit. Now, you can have belated access to them on the UCA News site (https://www.ucanews.com/popein-thailand-japan).

One bit of light in this sordid affair has been the loyalty of UCAN's reporters, writers and editors who have continued to bring news and commentary to the world while the administration was distracted with the crisis and so many of our readers were lost to us. Now that we are once again in complete control of our website and other communications, their reports and commentary are once again available for you and all the world.

Peace,
(Rev.) William J. Grimm
Publisher