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 Vatican Radio: 2nd Anniversary of the Papal Radio Station at St. Maria di Galeria Scott 262-263 (1959) Today is World Radio Day, which has been celebrated on this date since 2012. This year, it falls one day after Vatican Radio celebrated its 95th anniversary. For this year’s World Radio Day (WRD), Vatican Radio will broadcast a special series of programs in seven languages focusing on the future of radio in a world with new technologies and innovations. It looks at the relationship between the media, society, and artificial intelligence (AI), with the theme for this year’s WRD being “AI is a tool, not a voice”. Vatican Radio was founded in 1931 at the behest of Pope Pius XI. It was created by the father of radio, Guglielmo Marconi, and its first transmission took place on February 12, 1931, less than two years after the establishment of the Vatican City state. Here is a photograph from opening day, featuring, from left to right, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), Guglielmo Marconi and Pope Pius XI:  Inauguration of Vatican Radio, 12 February 1931 From Wikimedia Commons, in the Public Domain Vatican Radio’s original broadcast tower stands in the Vatican Gardens. In 1957, it was supplemented by a larger tower located at Santa Maria Galeria, northwest of Rome. The stamps at the top of the page were issued in 1959, two years after the installation of the new tower at Santa Maria Galeria. Vatican Radio was born to connect the Holy See to every corner of the world, speaking to diverse peoples, cultures, and languages. The program for the 2026 WRD will feature seven programs broadcast in Italian, English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Portuguese. The participants in the programs are listed in the Vatican News article in the References, who will: ”reflect on how radio, a profoundly human medium, made up of voice, relationship, and closeness, can inhabit the era of AI without losing its identity…[and continue] to be an irreplaceable tool of closeness, education, evangelization, public service, and innovation.”The Vatican News article closes by saying that: ”Ninety-five years after its birth, the Popes' Radio, built by Marconi, thus continues in its original vocation: to unite the world through the radio…[and in] the age of artificial intelligence, radio reminds the world that technology can undoubtedly be a tool, but the voice always remains human.”In addition to the stamps at the top of the article, Vatican City has issued many other stamps and postal stationery items to call attention to the history of Vatican Radio. The most recent, issued in 2021, was released to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of Vatican Radio and the 160th Anniversary of the Vatican newspaper, “L'Osservatore Romano”.  90th Anniversary of Vatican Radio and 160th Anniversary of L'Osservatore Romano Scott 1765 (2021) REFERENCES: |
