Pope to open secret archives of WW2 era

The Vatican will open the secret archives of wartime pontiff Pius XII in March 2020, which could shed light on why the Catholic Church failed to intervene more against the Holocaust, Pope Francis said.

Researchers have long sought to examine the World War 2-era archives for what they consider the lack of strong action by Pius XII (1939-1958) against the German Nazis over the massacre of Jews, an attitude denounced as a form of passive complicity.

“I decided that the opening of the Vatican Archives for the pontificate of Pius XII would take place on March 2 2020,” the pontiff said.

The date is the 81st anniversary of the election of Eugenio Pacelli to the papacy.

“The Church is not afraid of history,” Francis said, recalling that Pius XII found himself as head of the church “at one of the saddest and darkest times of the 20th century”.

Francis said he had made the decision understanding that serious historical research would evaluate “in a fair light, with appropriate criticism, the moments of exaltation of this pope and no doubt also moments of serious difficulties, tormenting decisions, and Christian and humane care”.

For many historians, Pius XII could have condemned more forcefully the massacre of Jews by the Nazis, but he did not do it out of diplomatic caution and so as not to put Catholics in danger in occupied Europe. Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem – said it commended the decision, which would enable objective and open research as well as comprehensive discourse on issues related to the conduct of the Vatican, in particular, and the Catholic Church, in general, during the Holocaust.

It expects researchers will be granted full access to all documents stored in the archives.

In 2012, the centre changed the caption on Pius XII in its museum, saying his reaction during the Holocaust continues to be a matter of controversy among scholars.

The Vatican was officially neutral during the war.

Other historians say Pius XII saved tens of thousands of Italian Jews by ordering convents to open their doors to them.

According to Vatican Archives head Bishop Sergio Pagano, preparations to make the documents public began under Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI in 2006.

The Holy See had hoped everything would be ready by 2015, but the amount of documents and a lack of staff had pushed that deadline back, he said.

Pagano said the painstaking work of archiving a crucial period for the Church and for the world would allow historians to discover a superhuman work of Christian humanism.

Francis said in studying the archives the wartime pope's decisions may appear to some as reticence, but that they were instead attempts to maintain, in times of the deepest darkness and cruelty, the small flame of humanitarian initiatives, of hidden but active diplomacy.

‘The opening of the archives for the pontificate of Pius XII will take place on March 2 2020’ Pope Francis HOLY SEE