The Vatican will join the move to high-definition TV later this year thanks to a donation from the Knights of Columbus and a discount from Sony. Just in time for the pope’s Christmas Mass, the Vatican will unveil a multimillion-dollar HD mobile television studio, which will be located in a 45-feet-long 18 wheeler and have 16 workstations.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican television center and the Vatican press office, told reporters the mobile studio and its all-HD equipment were worth a little more than $6 million. Sony Italy gave the Vatican a discount of more than $1 million; the Knights of Columbus contributed over $1 million; and the television center, CTV, covered the rest.

Lombardi said he knows people may think the project is too extravagant or expensive, but with television broadcasters around the world moving to high definition, "The image of the pope would gradually disappear from the world of television over the coming years."

CTV is responsible for all video images of the pope taken at the Vatican. The television center provides those images to broadcasters and filmmakers around the world.

If the Vatican's production values do not meet the standards of broadcasters, he said, "we, in fact, would be blocking the broadcast of the image and, therefore, the message of the pope."

Lombardi said there is a continuing dialogue at the Vatican between communications professionals and papal liturgists to find ways to meet the needs of both. For example, the main altar at St. Peter’s Basilica often has high candlesticks and a crucifix that block camera shots, and the pope has insisted on having moments of silence during the Mass.

The silences make television directors nervous and can send radio producers into a panic because it can appear they've lost their signal, Lombardi said. To deal with the silences, television people add cameras to provide a variety of images, but it is still a challenge for radio, he said.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, also announced that the Vatican is developing its own multimedia aggregated news site. The site will be an internet portal for news and features from CTV, Vatican Radio, the Vatican newspaper, the Vatican press office, and Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

A short video about the new Vatican HD truck: