Jesuit Father Lars Rooth passes away

Here at the English Programme of Vatican Radio we wish to express our sorrow at the passing away of Swedish Jesuit Father Lars Rooth. He worked closely with us for many years providing in a special way technical advice to short wave listeners within a weekly programme by the title of 'On the air', presented by Veronica Scarisbrick
We learnt of his death through the following communiqué sent to us by Ulf Jonsson:

Signum
Jesuit Father Lars Rooth has passed away
21^st July 2012
During the morning of Saturday, 21^st July, at the age of 90 years, Jesuit Father Lars Rooth has passed away at the home for the elderly Myrbergska gården in Uppsala.
Lars Rooth was born in Stockholm in 1921. After passing his student exam, he lived for a while in New York, and it was here that he converted to the Catholic Church. After the end of the Second World War, during which he was a voluntary soldier in the British Army for some years, he entered into the Jesuit Order. After having joined the order, he completed his Philosophy and Theology studies partly in Germany and partly in England. After his ordination in 1954 in St. Eugenia church in Stockholm, he worked both in Stockholm and Uppsala, for example as Editor-in-Chief of Katolsk kyrkotidning (=Catholic Church Magaqine) (the predecessor to Catholic Magazine) and as a student priest in Uppsala.
Many people probably mainly associated him with the Vatican Radio’s Swedish broadcasts. Lars was there already in the end of the 1950’s when what would eventually turn into the Scandinavian department of the Vatican Radio was being developed. Since the beginning of the 1960’s, he used to tape radio programs with a recorder in the Jesuit community at St. Johannesgatan in Uppsala and send the tape by mail to Rome, where they were broadcasted with the Vatican Radio’s short and long wave broadcasts.
The visits to Rome grew more and more frequent and in 1981 Lars Rooth settled down in Rome, where he led the Scandinavian department of the Vatican Radio until the mid 1990’s. He has often told that he felt that the years in Rome were some of the most interesting in his life. On behalf of the Vatican Radio, he often followed John Paul II on his trips throughout the world. He also worked as the Pope’s Swedish teacher before the Pope’s visit to the Nordic countries in 1989.
A good way to learn more about Lars Rooth is to read his exciting and well written autobiography “Det hände på vägen till Rom” (=It Happened on the Way to Rome) (publishing house Askelin & Hägglund).
Requiescat in pace – Let him rest in peace.
Ulf Jonsson 2012-07-21