Radio Veritas Asia is the non-commercial Catholic shortwave station broadcasting to Asia. It is based in Quezon City, Philippines, and is owned by the Philippine Radio Educational and Information Center, which previously owned the original Radio Veritas from 1969 to 1991. Its Urdu Service started its broadcast on August 14, 1987 in Lahore, Pakistan. Its mission is to promote justice to the oppressed through programs with specific moral, religious and inspirational content, and to voice peace and harmony among the sects, races, and sexes through socio-cultural programs and to promote dialogue among different religions.
History
On December 1958, the delegates of the Southeast Asian Bishops' Conference unanimously resolved to establish a radio station to serve the countries of Southeast Asia. Eleven years after that, Radio Veritas was inaugurated, on April 11, 1969. The Federation of Asian Bishops' Conference was entrusted with the operations of RVA from its beginning in 1970. This was confirmed by FABC's governing body, the General Assembly, in 1974. Since 1991 the annual magazine of the Radio Veritas Asia Urdu Service has been housed in the office building of the WAVE Studio. Most programs for Radio Veritas Asia's Urdu service are also recorded at the WAVE studio. Radio Veritas embarked on different means of delivering its religious message. It started using new technology such as the Internet and webcasting, and plans to upgrade to digital broadcasting. Between 2007 and June 2011 it had received over 30,000 letters from listeners in Pakistan, over 3,500 from India and nearly 500 from other countries. On October 9, 2011, more than 80 people from all over the country attended the 11th listeners’ conference of Radio Veritas Asia’s Urdu language service in Lahore. RVA’s Urdu service airs 13 morning and evening programs reaching listeners in Pakistan and India. In 2011 Father Nadeem John Shakir was the studio director. The 15th Conference of Catholic radio listeners was held on 21 September 2015 at Loyola Hall in Lahore. It was attended by 120 people from around the country. Bishop Joseph Arshad of Faisalabad and head of the Commission for Social Communications, addressed the conference invited the participants to build peace, tolerance and brotherhood in society via the radio.
RVA programming evolves from its two-fold objectives.
Evangelization
It has a mix of moral, religious, evangelical and socio-cultural, and entertainment programs on offer, as well as a few political, economic and informational programs. Programs include:
In 2015, it offers two 27 minute programs, one in the morning and one at night, dealing with health, culture, values, famous places in the world, personalities, social issues, literature, inventions and world news.
During the 25th anniversary celebration of RVA in 1995 Pope John Paul II said that RVA must be helped to fulfill its mission even though this will certainly involve even greater sacrifices and renewed commitment on the part of the local churches in Asia. Pope Francis sent a message to the station, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 11, 2019, calling for it to help build “a more just and united society".
