Pope Francis to open World War II-era Vatican archives to scrutiny

[sandensea]

Source: Washington Post

The Vatican announced Monday that it would open up its secret archives on the World War II papacy of Pope Pius XII, whom some scholars have accused of keeping silent about the Holocaust.

Jewish organizations have long called for the Vatican’s archives from this period to be made accessible, saying Pope Pius turned a blind eye to the systematic persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. But Pius’ actions during this period are up for debate, and others say he worked behind the scenes to help Jews.

“The church is not afraid of history,” Pope Francis told members of the Vatican’s Secret Archives division. He said the period of Pius’s papacy from 1939 to 1958 would be opened to researchers on March 2, 2020.

“Pope Francis’s decision to make these materials now fully open and available for international scholarly research is enormously important to Catholic-Jewish relations,” Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, said in a statement.

“It is particularly important that experts from the leading Holocaust memorial institutes in Israel and the U.S. objectively evaluate as best as possible the historical record of that most terrible of times, to acknowledge both the failures as well as the valiant efforts made during the period of the [Holocaust].”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/pope-francis-to-open-world-war-ii-era-vatican-archives-to-scrutiny/2019/03/04/2908ff80-3e75-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html

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Pope Francis and his wartime predecessor, Pius XII.

Pius' relationship with the Nazi regime, with which he had been acquainted since his days as Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador) to Germany, has been the subject of much study and speculation since his death in 1958.

Some credit him with helping thousands of Jews and others at risk leave Germany and Italy during World War II; but others have accused him of authorizing lucrative "ratlines" for Nazis and Italian and Croatian Fascists, through Croatia, after the war.

[burrowowl]

1. K&R

[olegramps]

4. Why not until next year? Hear the critics: Time to hide the incriminating documents.

[Jedi Guy]

5. Gun to my head, I'd guess because of the vast number of documents involved.

Apparently the Vatican Archives are pretty extensive, since we're talking centuries of documents. The time period in question allows it to be narrowed down considerably, but I'd be willing to bet it's still tens of thousands of documents, if not more. That's not the sort of thing you just hand over after a weekend of gathering it up.

Or they're purging and hiding the incriminating stuff, as you posit. Guess we'll have to wait another year (and likely longer, given how long the analysis will take) to find out just how open and honest they're going to be about this.

[olegramps]

7. I can assure you that the Vatican' is tops in library efficiency.

Their cataloging system can bring up documents virtually within seconds from ancient documents to yesterday's news. Scholars from numerous areas of study are daily being allowed to research documents. There is a system, a old carryover from the Index years that only allowed limited access to certain documents and which was scraped that protects access to certain documents.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Very courageous of Pope Francis to take this step. He is to be commended, by all means.

Good for him.

[sandensea]

3. Absolutely.

All the more since one of Pius' most lucrative such ratlines was to Argentina - Francis' birthplace, as you know.

Of course, it paled in comparison to Prescott Bush's 'Ppaerclip' ratline of Nazis and Croatian Ustase into the U.S. - but we can hardly expect anyone to open those records, surely.

[Nitram]

6. Really? I'll believe it when I see it.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Kick