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Catholic World News News Feature

New head for Vatican Radio November 07, 2005

A new director general has been appointed to head Vatican Radio. Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, replaces his Jesuit colleague, Father Pasquale Borgomeo, who headed the broadcast operation for more than 20 years.

Father Lombardi been working as programming director for Vatican Radio. He will be replaced in that post by Father Andrzej Koprowski, a Polish Jesuit, who had been his assistant. A former Jesuit provincial in Poland, Father Koprowski once directed religious programming for Polish state television

In announcing the new appointments, Pope Benedict XVI thanked Father Borgomeo for his "long and generous service" at Vatican Radio. The outgoing director is 72 years old.

Inaugurated in 1931, Vatican Radio programming is now available in 40 different languages, with broadcasts spanning the world. The power of those broadcast signals provoked a controversy in 2001, when Italian authorities claimed that excessive electro-magnetic emissions from the Vatican Radio transmission facility in Santa Maria de Galeria, north of Rome, were causing health risks to local residents. The Vatican pointed out that the level of emissions were consistent with most European laws (although not with Italy's strict new standards), and that there is no compelling scientific evidence that electro-magnetic emissions damage human health. Eventually, nonetheless, Vatican Radio struck an accord with Italy to reduce the level of those emissions.

Father Borgomeo and Cardinal Roberto Tucci, the chairman of the Vatican Radio broadcasting board, were eventually convicted by an Italian jury of "electronic pollution," and sentenced to serve 10 days in jail. Vatican Radio has appealed the conviction.