Many scholars and Jewish organizations have accused then Pope Pius XII of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.
By Chico Harlan and Chico Harlan Rome bureau chief covering southern Europe and sometimes parts beyond Email Bio Follow Paul Schemm Paul Schemm Overnight foreign editor based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Email Bio Follow March 4 at 9:17 AM ROME — 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.
“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.Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, welcomed the move, noting that his organization has been calling for access to that period in the archives for the last 30 years.
Pope Pius XII appears behind microphones during a radio broadcast from the Vatican in November 1947. The pope commended the American people for their eifforts to save food for war-torn Europe. The Vatican kept a strict policy of neutrality during the war and did not denounce Nazism. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the new head of the Vatican office that scrutinizes the cases for possible saints, said last year that Pius’s case for sainthood “has not progressed.”
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