Vatican Opens Archives About Germany Early In A Bid To Improve
Image Of Pius XII
Associated Press ^
VATICAN CITY - For years the Vatican has struggled to defend its wartime pope, Pius XII, against claims he was anti-Semitic and didn't do enough to save Jews from the Holocaust.
Now the Vatican is taking the extraordinary step of opening part of its secret archives ahead of schedule, in a bid to silence attacks against a man it is considering for sainthood. Starting Saturday, millions of Vatican documents from the years leading up to World War II will be available to scholars.
The Vatican's chief archivist says he doesn't expect any "shocking revelations" to emerge from the documents _ and it will no doubt be months if not years before any findings are published. But Roman Catholic and Jewish scholars say the papers may answer some questions about the policies that shaped Pius' papacy and what the Vatican knew about anti-Semitism in Europe before the war.
Jewish scholars in particular praised the opening, which is occurring a few years ahead of schedule at the express wish of Pope John Paul II. They say it showed the Vatican's private archive was professional, responsible and responsive to the needs of scholars.
"I think that every person goes into an archive with the hope that they will find a document that will turn the way we think about these things," said Rabbi Michael Signer, a professor of Jewish thought and culture at the Catholic University of Notre Dame who has studied in the Vatican Library.
"So this will augment and complement material that we already have from local archives," he said in a telephone interview.
However, Jewish groups such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the documents will only confirm that Pius XII was silent in the face of the Holocaust despite knowing of its atrocities.
"I believe that if John Paul II had been pope during the Holocaust, the events never would have occurred. He would never have remained silent because he has proven himself to be a person of conscience," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The documents come from Vatican missions in Munich and Berlin and from the office of its secretary of state in Rome. They cover the Vatican's relations with Germany from 1922 to 1939. During those years, Pius XII was a Vatican diplomat in Germany and later its secretary of state.
He became pope in 1939 and served until 1958.
Missing are 1931-1934 files from the papal nuncio's palace in Berlin, which were ruined by Allied bombing in 1945.
Also available to researchers starting Saturday are wartime archives from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican watchdog of Church orthodoxy. These include documents on the Vatican's views on racism, fascism, Nazism, and eugenics, among other issues _ files scholars say could be enormously important in understanding the intellectual climate of Europe that allowed Nazism to thrive.
Later this year, the Vatican is expected to publish on CD-ROM a general inventory of its dossier on prisoners of war dating from 1939-1947, a block of more than 3,000 folders with references to more than 3.5 million prisoners from across Europe.
The Vatican set up offices during WWII to help relatives trace family members.
Pius XII, born Eugenio Pacelli in Rome on March 2, 1876, has been portrayed by some historians and Jews as an anti-Semite who failed to use his power to speak out against the Nazi genocide.
Critical books such as the 1999 bestseller "Hitler's Pope," by John Cornwell, have riled the Vatican, which has insisted Pius used quiet diplomacy that saved thousands of Jewish lives.
