Vatican
Radio Convicted
A Time Line
This is an extended list of
references for the parent document:
(Each block of parragraphs are literal quotations from the referenced
source, except for the notes in brackets)
2000
In 2000,
a small number of cases of childhood leukemia, first reported by a
local physician, were blamed by residents on the strong radio-frequency
fields generated by the Vatican antennas.
Local residents and environmentalists have sought to have the Vatican
close down the complex since 2000.
Source 2005-Oct-01 https://spectrum.ieee.org/sins-of-transmission
April 23 -- The Vatican is reported to
be using its diplomatic immunity to hinder
investigations of claims that Vatican radio transmitters are causing
cancer in the a northern suburb of Rome.
Residents of Cesano, which is near the Vatican's antennae at Santa
Maria de Galera, have complained about the transmissions.
Investigations have shown an incidence of tumours around a third higher
than the national average and electromagnetic energy in the area was
three times the legal limit.
The Vatican is reported to have returned paperwork sent to them by
investigating magistrates on the grounds that the antennae complex has
extra-territorial status.
Source 2000-Apr-23 https://radionewsweb.com/2000-04.html#Vatican1
October 9 -- Despite attempts by the
Vatican to claim diplomatic immunity for its
radio station in a northern suburb of Rome, three executives from
Vatican Radio look likely to face trial over harm its emissions have
allegedly caused.
Italy has no specific laws on electromagnetic radiation so the three --
Vatican Radio's president, director-general and technical director - -
are to be charged with "dangerous throwing of things."
Source 2000-Oct-9 https://radionewsweb.com/2000-10.html#Vatican1
2001
..... a complaint [was] filed in
2001 by Cesano
residents who alleged health hazards posed by the electromagnetic waves.
Source 2010-Jul-15 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Vatican-radio-waves-blamed-for-high-cancer-risk.html
Vatican Radio [in 2011]: ''Since an agreement with the Italian
government in 2001,
the limits set by Italian law have been attentively respected, as shown
by repeated measurements carried out by the competent Italian public
institutions."
Source 2011-Feb-25 https://www.ansa.it/.../visualizza_new.html_1583011632.html
A 2001 investigation
by Italy's environment ministry showed that magnetic fields in the area
were six times more powerful than allowed, while Rome's Lazio region
estimated that the rate of deaths from leukaemia among children in the
Cesano area was three times higher than in adjoining areas.
Mr Lombardi, who [in 2020] is also the Vatican spokesman, added:
"Vatican Radio
has always observed international directives on electromagnetic
emissions and since 2001 has observed more restrictive norms set by
Italy to allay the concerns of the neighbouring populations."
Source 2020-Jul-15 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Vatican-radio-waves-blamed-for-high-cancer-risk.html
April 11 -- Italy has again threatened
to shut down Vatican Radio if it fails to reduce levels of
electro-magnetic radiation from its transmitters within the next week.
The threat came despite a Vatican offer to cut some of its
transmissions after Easter. Italian Environment Minister Willer Bordon
said the offer was "absolutely insufficient". The minister has accused
Vatican Radio of exceeding Italian laws on radiation and of being a
health hazard.
Last month [March 2001], Mr Bordon said the National Agency for the
Protection of the Environment had registered three times the legal
limit for electro-magnetic radiation during one evening broadcast.
Vatican Radio spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the government had
raised "unjustified alarm" and rejected allegations that the Vatican
did not care about the health of local residents. On Monday [9 Apr
2001] the station, ....., said it would reduce half of its medium-wave
transmissions, after tests ordered by the environment ministry
confirmed that the transmissions violated Italian standards.
Source 2001-Apr-11 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1271092.stm
April 17 -- Italy's Environment Minister has threatened to cut the
electricity
supply to Vatican Radio following a dispute about electromagnetic
emissions from the site which have registered up to three times Italy's
legal limit.
The Vatican has been claiming extra-territorial immunity under a 1951
agreement with Italy for the radio site which, like the Vatican itself,
is considered part of a sovereign state. It refused to pass on summons
issued against three officials: Father
Roberto Tucci, who was made a cardinal last month and who is chairman
of the radio's management board; Father Pasquale Borgomeo, its director
general; and Costantino Pacifici, the deputy technical director.
The transmission centre at Santa Maria di Galeria, a few miles north of
Rome, has 58 antennae, some as tall as 300 feet, which beam religious
ceremonies and the spiritual messages of the Pope round the world. When
it was first built, the area was open countryside but now it is in
a built up area and a recent health service study found children living
within one and a half miles of the transmitters were six times more
likely to develop leukaemia than children living in Rome.
Residents in the nearby village of Cesano have complained that emission
levels in their homes are up to eight times the legally allowed level
permitted under a law that was passed in February and say it's like
living a microwave oven.
Source 2001-Apr-17 https://radionewsweb.com/2001-03.html#Vatican1
April 19 -- The Vatican is, of course, arguing that there is no proven
link between
the transmitter complex and a greater incidence of cancer and leukaemia
in the nearby area and on Friday [16 March 2001], it broadcast an
hour-long programme
entitled: "Listen to believe" - explaining its position.
As well as claiming that its transmissions are within international
standards, which are less strict than those of Italy, the Vatican is
claiming extra-territorial immunity.
Source 2001-03-19 https://radionewsweb.com/2001-03.html#Vatican2
2002
A first trial was stopped in 2002 when
a judge ruled that Italy had no jurisdiction over the radio station
because it was part of the Vatican City, an independent sovereign
state. But that decision was later overturned [in 2003] and Cardinal
Tucci, the station's president, and Rev Borgomeo, its director general,
went back on trial.
Source 2005-May-09 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4531247.stm
A team of researchers led by Paola
Michelozzi of the Local Health Authority, in Rome, reported in 2002
that the incidence of childhood leukemia from 1987 to 1998 was twice
the expected rate, but the actual numbers were very small. .....
Because of the small number, Michelozzi considers the result
statistically insignificant. But ..... Michelozzi's survey
determined that if leukemia incidence was measured in concentric
circles around the radio complex, rates dropped off with increasing
distance from the transmitters.
Source 2005-Oct-01 https://spectrum.ieee.org/sins-of-transmission
The first epidemiological study
[Michelozzi 2002] into the possible effects of the Vatican's radio
waves, led by Paola Michelozzi of the Local Health Authority in Rome,
reported an increase in childhood leukemia in the local population of
60 000 within a radius of 10 km of the antenna complex: 8 cases instead
of the expected 3.7.
Source 2010-Jul-20 https://spectrum.ieee.org/vatican-radio-still-making-waves
2003
But in
2003, Italy's Supreme Court
overturned those rulings [of 2002, that the Italian government had no
jurisdiction over the transmitters because of the Vatican's status as
an independent state], which resulted in the two Vatican officials'
having to stand trial.
Source 2005-Oct-01 https://spectrum.ieee.org/sins-of-transmission
2005
Roman Catholic cardinal and a priest
in charge of Vatican Radio have been convicted of polluting the
atmosphere with powerful electromagnetic waves. Cardinal Roberto Tucci
and Father Pasquale Borgomeo were given suspended 10-day jail sentences
(*). The Italian
court also ordered them to pay damages and court costs.
Source 2005-May-09 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4531247.stm
This past May, an Italian court imposed suspended 10-day prison
sentences
(*)
on two Vatican officials responsible for operating the transmitters, a
cardinal and a priest, for the "dangerous showering of objects"
--meaning the antennas' electromagnetic waves. (The term
"electromagnetic radiation" has not made it yet into Italy's legal
vocabulary.) In addition, environmental groups and committees
representing the local population will be awarded damages in a separate
civil action, though the figures have yet to be determined.
Source 2005-Oct-01 https://spectrum.ieee.org/sins-of-transmission
(*)
The criminal
conviction and the jail sentence were overturned, first by an appeals
court in 2007, and definitively by the Italy's highest
court (in 2009 or 2011, depending of the source), but the decision
requiring Vatican Radio to pay damages
was upheld (in 2011 by the Italy's highest court).
2007
An Italian court [a court of appeal] has overturned
(*) the 2005 convictions of
two former
Vatican Radio officials who were found guilty of polluting the
atmosphere through electromagnetic emissions from Vatican Radio's
transmission complex at Santa Maria di Galeria near Rome.
Cardinal Roberto Tucci, former president of Vatican Radio's management
committee, and Jesuit Father Pasquale Borgomeo, formerly the general
director had been given suspended prison sentences but the Rome
appellate court overturned the conviction.
Catholic News says a group of local residents and environmental groups
already have announced they will appeal the decision to the Italian
Supreme Court [they did in 2008], and that a separate civil procedure
claiming Vatican
Radio damaged the health of local residents is to continue.
Source 2007-Jun-09 https://radionewsweb.com/2007-06.html#Vatican1
(*) The criminal
conviction and the jail sentence were overturned, first by an appeals
court in 2007, and definitively by the Italy's highest
court (in 2009 or 2011, depending of the source), but the decision
requiring Vatican Radio to pay damages
was upheld (in 2011 by the Italy's highest court).
2008-2009
..... the case [of criminal offences in relation to the emissions and
of corresponding prison sentences] was opened again in 2008 by Italy's
top court, the Court of Cassation and then dismissed last year [2009].
Source 2010-Jul-15 https://radionewsweb.com/2010/2010-07.html#Vatican1
2010
July 15 -- A court-ordered study [that one ordered in 2005] has found
that electromagnetic waves beamed by
Vatican Radio leave residents living near the station's antennas at a
higher risk of cancer.
"There has been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation
between exposure to Vatican Radio's structures and the risk of
leukaemia and lymphoma in children," the report said, according to the
daily La Stampa. The report also warned of "important risks" of dying
of cancer for people who had lived for at least 10 years within a
5.5-mile radius of the radio's giant antenna towers near Cesano, 12
miles north of Rome.
A Rome judge ordered the report in 2005
as part of an investigation into a complaint filed in 2001 by Cesano
residents who alleged health hazards posed by the electromagnetic waves.
Source 2010-Jul-15 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Vatican-radio-waves-blamed-for-high-cancer-risk.html
July 15 -- Vatican Radio is disputing the conclusions of a
court-ordered study of
the effects of electromagnetic radiation from its transmission
facilities at Santa Maria di Galeria is linked to higher cancer rates
to those living at Cesano near the site.
According to the daily La Stampa newspaper the report says there has
"been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation between
exposure to Vatican Radio's structures and the risk of leukaemia and
lymphoma in children" and adds that there are "important risks" of
dying of cancer for people who had resided at least 10 years within a
nine-kilometre (5.5-mile) radius of the radio's giant antenna towers.
The report was ordered in 2005 as part of investigations into a
complaint filed by Cesano residents [in 2000-2001] and a case in
which Cardinal Roberto Tucci and Pasquale Borgomeo, who were Vatican
Radio's then president and director respectively, were found guilty of
criminal offences in relation to the emissions and given suspended
prison sentences [in 2005].
The convictions were overturned by an appeals court two years later
[in 2007] but the case was opened again in 2008 by Italy's
top court, the [Supreme] Court of Cassation and then
dismissed last year [2009].
Source 2010-Jul-15 https://radionewsweb.com/2010/2010-07.html#Vatican1
July 20 -- A new study ordered by a court in Rome [that one ordered in
2005] has revived the decade-long battle between the inhabitants of
Cesano, Italy, who live close to a huge complex of shortwave antennas,
and the operator of this complex, Vatican Radio
The new 300-page research report, by a team at Milan's National Tumor
Institute led by Andrea Micheli, supports the claim of Cesano
residents: Nineteen children living at a distance of 12 km or less from
the antennas died from leukemia or lymphoma between 1980 and 2003, a
figure higher than in control groups in other parts of the country.
Source 2010-Jul-20 https://spectrum.ieee.org/vatican-radio-still-making-waves
2011
The [Italy’s highest] court upheld a
decision [of 2005] requiring Vatican Radio to pay damages to the town
of Cesano, located near the broadcaster’s transmission facility outside
Rome. However, the court also overturned [in 2009 or 2011?] a criminal
conviction and 10-day suspended sentence that a lower court had imposed
on Cardinal Roberto Tucci, the former chairman of the Vatican Radio
board.
Source 2011-Feb-25 https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=9408
The Codacons consumer association,
which backed Cesano inhabitants' claims, hailed the [Supreme] Cassation
Court's decision [the Italy's highest court] to reject Vatican Radio's
appeal against the compensation order. ''It's a great victory. Finally
justice is done and the people of Cesano will be able to have the
compensation they are rightfully due,'' said Codacons President Carlo
Rienzi. ''We're satisfied. Now we'll see what happens with the other
more serious question of the increase in mortality for leukemia among
Cesano inhabitants''.
Rome's Court of Appeal will decide how much Vatican Radio will have to
pay in damages.
The supreme court also upheld [in 2009 or 2011?] a previous ruling that
overturned a 10-day suspended sentence handed to Cardinal Roberto
Tucci, the former head of Vatican Radio's management board, by a lower
court.
Source 2011-Feb-25 https://www.ansa.it/.../visualizza_new.html_1583011632.html
This is an extended list of
references for the parent document:
Published on November 30th, 2021
© Format Copyright 2021 by The M+G+R Foundation.
All rights reserved. However, you may
freely reproduce and distribute this document as long as: (1)
Appropriate credit is given as to its source; (2) No changes are made
in the text without prior written consent; and (3) No charge is made
for it.
The M+G+R Foundation

Please Note: If the above dated image does not appear
on this document, it means that you are not viewing the original
document from our servers. Should you have reason to doubt the
authenticity of the document, we recommend that you access our server
again and click on the "Refresh" or "Reload" button of your Browser to
view the original document.