Vatican to Open Files From Start of Nazi Period
December 30, 2002
The Vatican is planning to open its archives relating to interactions with Nazi Germany in the years leading up to World War II.
The archives cover the period from 1922 to 1939, when Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, was the Vatican’s ambassador to Berlin.
Starting on Feb. 15, the church will open the archives to scholars who make a formal request to view them, according to an announcement released this weekend.
The Catholic church has been under pressure from Jewish groups and scholars, who have accused the church of not doing enough to stop the persecution of Jews and others during the Holocaust.
Daniel Goldhagen, author of the book A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair urged the church "To tell the truth. The church must stop its aggressive cover-up of 60 years, open its archives across Europe and commission studies from indepedent scholars so the truth becomes known," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times in November.
The archives to be released do not cover the wartime period and the Vatican warned in a statement that most documents from 1931 to 1934 were destroyed by fires and bombing in World War II.
The Vatican documents relating to Pope Pius XII’s tenure from 1939 to 1958 will not be released until sometime after 2005.
Italian historian Riccardo Calimani told the German Press Agency on Sunday that only after these documents are released will it be possible to judge Pope Pius XII’s actions during World War II.