How it is made

Each part of the portal begins with its source. The liturgical day and its readings, with the General Roman Calendar, the proper calendars of each country and the Lectionary of the Mass. The Bible, with classic Catholic translations in the public domain. The saints of each date, with the Roman Martyrology. The lives of the saints, with what they themselves wrote, what the witnesses told, the ancient lives, the documents of the Church and the work of historians. Which source is used in each case is set out in Sources and method.

Before publishing, every fact is checked against its source. A reading reference against the Lectionary, a date against the calendar, a verse against the edition it comes from, an event in a saint's life against the documents. What is documented is told as history. Tradition is told as tradition, whole and with respect. What does not hold up is left out. In the lives of the saints, each fact is marked by its degree of certainty, and the list of works consulted is the bibliography that goes with them.

It is written with the reader or listener in mind. The person who prays with the Word and with the saints, the one who studies Scripture or history, the one who has heard of a saint without knowing them and the one who arrives out of curiosity. The readings carry a title that helps the reader into them, without touching the text. Each book of the Bible has a short introduction. Each life of a saint begins with the context, the world and the Church of the time, goes on to the life, its trials and the turn that changed it, and ends with a prayer. The saints' words are taken from their writings.

The works of art of the day and of the Bible are public-domain paintings, adapted to the portal's format without cutting their figures. On feasts the image is of the feast itself; on other days, a scene from the Gospel. When no free work fits, the image is created with artificial intelligence and the page says so. The illustrations of the lives of the saints are photorealistic recreations based on references from the period, and each saint's face and attributes are compared with portraits, photographs and early descriptions where they exist. They are illustrations, not documents.

The lives of the saints on video are narrated with a voice created with artificial intelligence, with the pronunciation of every name checked. The music is original, created with artificial intelligence for the exclusive use of Fides Viva, and supports the story without covering it.

The portal is published in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Italian, French and Latin. Feasts and saints are named as the tradition of each language names them. In English the readings are read in the Douay-Rheims, in French in the Crampon and in Latin in the Clementine Vulgate; in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, in a free, unofficial Fides Viva translation from the Vulgate, which always leads to the official text of the liturgy. The lives of the saints are written first in Spanish and recreated in Portuguese, English, Italian and French, without translating word for word and without changing the facts; they do not yet have a Latin version.

Artificial intelligence tools help gather and organize the material, prepare drafts and translations and shape the voice, the images and the music. What is published, which source counts and what is left out are decided by people, who read, correct and approve the work before it is published and answer for what is published.