MANILA, Philippines -- Roman Catholic bishops in Manila on Sunday launched a pornography-free Internet service provider designed to steer young people to the Southeast Asian country's dominant religion.

CBCP World, named after the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, features filters that blot out Web sites deemed by the bishops to be pornographic, violent, or containing material contrary to church teachings.

The bishops' spokesman, Monsignor Hernando Coronel, said the portal would be devoted primarily to schools, dioceses, and religious congregations in the Philippines, home to more than 50 million Catholics.

The bishops say the launch of the Internet portal is in line with Pope John Paul II's call to make the Internet a forum to spread church teachings, according to the Catholic News Service.

Monsignor Robinson Wijesing-he, charge d'affaires of the Vatican's apostolic nunciature in the Philippines, attended ceremonies to launch the service at the Manila cathedral.

A survey conducted by Ateneo de Manila University, a Catholic institution, found that church membership in the Philippines may decline over the next generation. Just 76 percent of Filipino youth are affiliated with the church, compared to the national average of 84 percent, according to the survey.

Coronel said a percentage of revenues from CBCP World would be given to the Philippine dioceses as seed money for an information technology development fund.