The Vatican is engaged in a diplomatic battle with Italy, seeking to stave off the criminal trial of three top officials of Vatican Radio next month over alleged electromagnetic pollution by the broadcaster. The Vatican is standing behind its extraterritorial status in one of the few cases in decades in which it has sought to keep its officials immune from Italian law. Protests by citizens' groups and environmental organisations against radio stations and telephone transmitters have been growing since the government decreed far more stringent standards for the intensity of electromagnetic fields than those applied by other EU countries. For half a century, Vatican Radio has been beaming the pope's words around the world from a forest of antennas. Recently, people living near the broadcasting facility have complained that the transmissions interfere with their home appliances, telephones and TV reception.
Environmental groups allege the electromagnetic waves cause cancer.
The Vatican contends the transmissions meet international standards, and it questions allegations by the local health office, which initiated the complaint, that they represent a risk. Vatican eyeing Isidore as Cyberspace patron saint. Pope John Paul is considering naming Saint Isidore of Seville the patron saint of Internet users and computer programmers, Vatican sources said on Tuesday. Saint Isidore was nominated two years ago but the Holy See has yet to make a final decision. Saint Isidore, who lived in the seventh century, was believed to have written the world's first encyclopaedia, the Etymologies, which included entries on medicine, mathematics, history and theology.