The Vatican will open part of its secret archives, including documents from the 1920s to 1939 that deal with the rise of Nazism and the threat to the Jews. It is hoped that these documents will clear up the controversy about Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Some historians claim that the Church was silent and did not assist in rescue efforts. Others cite the number of Jews that were hidden in convents, monasteries and even in the Vatican itself and remind critics that the Vatican had no army to defend the Church if the Pope spoke out against the aggressors.
For more information, please see:
The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis, David Dalin BX1378 D35 2005
The Assisi Underground: The Priests Who Rescued the Jews – D810 J4 R3
The Scarlet and the Black (VHS) – PN1997 S22 2003
What's New at the JPII Library 
September 23, 2006 at 9:28 pm
The vatican shouldn’t call the secret archieves secret, but rather should call them “items that might get us in trouble.”