VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope Benedict XVI has authorised the Vatican Secret Archives to make available to researchers all the documentation from the pre-World War II pontificate of Pope Pius XI.
The documents of the 1922-39 pontificate – held in a variety of Vatican archives, including those of the Secretariat of State and the Vatican Secret Archives – will be available to scholars from September 18, said a statement published on June 30 by the Vatican.
In 2002, Pope John Paul II ordered the archives to begin preparing the material, particularly with a view to responding to requests for information about Vatican diplomatic contacts with Germany after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.
In addition, he authorised the archives to make available to scholars the material from Pope Pius’ pontificate that dealt directly with Vatican-German relations.
The 2003 opening of the Vatican-German papers was unusual, because normal Vatican practice is to catalogue and open all material from an entire pontificate at the same time.
The Vatican had said the early publication of the selected material was a sign of Pope John Paul’s desire to “render a service to historical truth without clamour, fear or delay”.
The documents were considered especially sensitive because they covered the period in which Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, served as nuncio in Germany and then as Vatican secretary of state.
