Religion: New Voice for the Vatican

Done up in a white tie and swallow-tailed coat, 56-year-old Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, addressed Pope Pius XI on Feb. 12, 1931: “Holy Father, the world is listening. Speak.” Said the Pope: “Listen, O heavens, listen, O earth, listen, all peoples, lend your ear all of you who inhabit the globe …”

With this exchange, the Vatican radio station built by Marconi began broadcasting 26 years ago. This week the Vatican radio (call letters: HVJ, which have no particular significance) will go on the air with a far stronger voice: a powerful, new transmitting station (cost: about $3,200,000). Located on a 200-acre tract at Santa Maria di Galeria, twelve miles northwest of Rome, the 100-kw. main transmitter, more powerful by 40 kw. than Marconi’s, is equipped with 24 Telefunken directional aerials (designed to overcome variations in signal strength caused by fluctuations in the ionosphere). A second, medium-distance transmitter, able to blanket the Mediterranean basin, will replace the short-range broadcaster, but will not interfere with Rome’s stations, as the old unit did.

The new Vatican station will broadcast from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. (old schedule: four hours in the afternoon, five at night) in Latin and 27 other languages, including Russian, Chinese and eleven others of Communist-sphere countries. Announcers are 20 Jesuits, each a language specialist. U.S. short-wave sets can receive the station in the 31-, 41-and 48-meter bands. In addition to news, theological talks and church ceremonies, the new broadcasts will include chamber music once a week.

Despite such quiet programing, there have been occasions of high drama in the history of Vatican radio. In 1938, four hours before the Munich pact was signed, aged (81), ailing Pius XI told the world: “We offer our life, this poor earthly life that peace may win.” Two years later his successor, Pope Pius XII, began to stretch Vatican neutrality to the breaking point by using the radio to lash out at Naziism. broadcast sermons to the warring world.

This week, making his longest journey north from Rome since he became Pope, Pius XII visited the new transmitting station, now Vatican territory, and pressed two buttons to start the transmission. Then he spoke the first words to be broadcast: “Hearken, ye people from afar (Isaias 49:1) let all give ear. From the Vatican Radio’s new station, above which rises high and victorious the cross, symbol of truth and charity, ‘our mouth is open to you’ (2 Corinthians 6:11).”