Vatican Radio celebrates 95 years with new jingle

Vatican News

Marking the 95th anniversary of its founding, on February 12, 2026, Vatican Radio – Vatican News is renewing and relaunching one of the most recognizable elements of its identity: its jingle, the audio logo that has always accompanied the listeners of the Popes’ Radio.

This project has been conceived to celebrate this historic milestone with a sign that merges tradition and contemporaneity.

The new jingle has been entrusted to Maestro Marcello Filotei of the Musical Programs editorial team, led by Maestro Pierluigi Morelli. It will accompany listeners throughout the entire day of February 12, before becoming a permanent feature of regular programming.

The new audio logos are the natural modern evolution of the historic orchestration of Christus Vincit created by Maestro Alberico Vitalini—based on a theme by Czech composer Jan Kunc—a distinctive and recognizable element of the Radio’s identity right from the beginning.

The original Christus Vincit theme has been reworked in a modern key, maintaining a direct link with tradition while at the same time offering a new sonic guise in line with contemporary culture and sensibilities.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, Paolo Ruffini, stated that, “Vatican Radio has always cultivated, even in its jingle, a special relationship with music that defines its identity.”

“Music,” he said, “speaks to us of that dynamic harmony, never identical to itself, which we all seek in our lives. It generates resonances that become dialogue, dialogue that becomes communion, and memory that becomes life. Celebrating today the 95 years of our radio by revisiting the network’s jingles has precisely this meaning for us: to condense, in the few seconds of an audio logo, a history in which identity and communion merge, grow together, and make us feel at home.”

The project includes four main jingles, all based on the Christus Vincit theme, each designed to accompany a different moment of the radio day: a version dedicated to awakening, one for the morning, one for the afternoon, and one for the night.

In addition, there are two short jingles: the first uses the incipit of the theme, while the second reprises its ending, creating an immediate and recognizable connection with the original sonic branding.

“It was an exercise in balance between tradition and novelty,” notes Maestro Marcello Filotei.

“Like walking on a tightrope stretched between two skyscrapers, trying not to fall into the obvious. Modernizing does not mean abandoning the past, but rereading it with new eyes.”

An additional special jingle was also created by Maestro Pierluigi Morelli, recalling Baroque-era orchestration and evoking a historical and musical dimension that harmoniously fits into the tradition of Vatican Radio.

All the jingles will be broadcast simultaneously on the Italian-language channel and across Vatican Radio’s 30 web radios, creating a wide-ranging shared listening experience.

Meanwhile, Deputy Editorial Director responsible for Vatican Radio–Vatican News, Massimiliano Menichetti, noted, “With this renewal proposed and carried out by the Musical Programs, Vatican Radio recalls and renews the mission of its service through its soundscape, highlighting the bridge between past and present in the light of faith.”

The programming schedule will be as follows:

7:00–9:00 Wake-Up Ident
9:00–11:00 Morning Ident
12:00 Historical Ident – orchestration by Alberico Vitalini
14:00–18:00 Afternoon Ident
24:00 Historical Ident – orchestration by Alberico Vitalini
24:00–6:00 Night Ident