Vatican publishes the Pontifical Yearbook in digital format

The Pontifical Yearbook of the Catholic Church — which collects data on dioceses, dicasteries of the Roman Curia, nunciatures, and embassies to the Holy See, as well as cardinals and religious institutes around the world — is now available online.

The Secretariat of State made this announcement on December 9, 2025. The very first user was a high-ranking guest: Leo XIV made the inaugural visit to this subscription-based site.

The nearly 2,500 pages of the famous red volume, which was sold at the Vatican Bookstore and updated annually, have now made their way into the digital world.

This transition is all the more noteworthy given that the directory, heir to a centuries-old tradition, dates back to the Middle Ages with the Liber Pontificalis, a medieval collection of papal biographies. In 1860, the publication took the name Annuario Pontificio before becoming an official publication of the Vatican Press in 1899 under Leo XIII.

The new website, with an elegant white background, will have the advantage of continuously updated information. It will include new appointments and changes within Church entities. Previously, the Church’s Central Statistics Office communicated updates — such as fax line closures, deaths, or changes in figures — sparingly, through notes.

This project, accompanied by a mobile phone app, is designed to be “constantly evolving.” In particular, it plans to offer translations into several languages — the site is currently only available in Italian — and to develop advanced search tools for researchers and specialists.

This digital directory was presented to Pope Leo XIV, who made the first connection, browsed the platform, and praised it as “extremely useful.”

For other users, the annual subscription cost is €68.10 (nearly $80 at today’s exchange rate) — compared to €78 (around $90) for the paper version, which will remain available in limited copies, a Vatican source told I.MEDIA.