The story of Radio Maria Panama starts, fittingly, with one priest's time abroad. Father Francisco Verar brought the idea back to Panama in 1992 after encountering Radio Maria during his years of study in Rome. It took another five years for the Radio Maria Association to formally establish itself in the country, and on August 5, 1998, the station finally went on air in Panama Province, backed by the World Family of Radio Maria and local donors.
What Verar brought home was already a growing global project. Radio Maria was founded in 1987 in Erba, Italy, inspired in part by Pope John Paul II's call that same year for a "new evangelization." What began as a single Italian station has since grown into a network spanning 86 countries with roughly 1,500 transmitters, one of the largest religious broadcasting operations in the world, funded almost entirely through listener contributions rather than church budgets.
Growing Alongside the Community
Panama's chapter grew quickly once it launched. Between 1998 and 1999, five repeaters went into operation across four frequencies, extending the signal well beyond Panama City. The Fraternity Sisters of Mary Queen of Peace supported the station heavily in its early years, and by 2001 operations had moved to the Santa Eduvigis Parish in Betania. The station found its own permanent home in 2006, when its headquarters were blessed and inaugurated with support from Radio Maria Italia and years of contributions from Panamanian listeners, the same grassroots funding model the network relies on globally.
The station also launched its own signature fundraising and community event, the Radio Maria Mariathon, first held in 2004 and still a fixture of the station's calendar. Leadership has passed through four editorial directors since the station's founding: Father Francisco Verar through 2004, Father Berardo Grisolía through 2006, Father Víctor Atencio through 2020, and Father Oriel Concepción Martínez, who has led the station since.
Part of Something Larger
Across Latin America, Radio Maria operates in nearly every country from Mexico down through Argentina, each station carrying the same core mix of Mass broadcasts, rosary recitations and Catholic teaching alongside devotional music, adapted to local audiences but tied together by a shared mission. Radio Maria Panama's own path, one priest's idea, a handful of nuns' early support, and decades of listener-funded growth, reflects almost exactly how the network has spread across the rest of the continent, one country and one community at a time.