Newly opened Vatican archives may give clues to Pope Pius XII's Holocaust silence

Sixty lucky historians stood in line at the Vatican on Monday as the tiny city-state finally opened its wartime archives on the papacy of Pius XII — millions of pages that could help explain why the pontiff kept silent during the slaughter of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Pius was pope from 1939 until his death in 1958. A pope’s archives are usually kept sealed for 70 years after he dies, but Pope Francis sped up their publication, announcing, “The church isn’t afraid of history.”A view of The Vatican Apostolic Secret Archive, the central archive of the Holy See where are kept all the documents concerning the government and pastoral activity of the Roman pontiff and offices of the Holy See.

Historians have begged to differ. John Cornwell, the British author of the 1999 book “Hitler’s Pope,” believes Pius made it clear to Hitler he would not speak out against the Holocaust.Before he become pope and took the name Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli served as the Vatican’s ambassador to Germany from 1917 to 1929, witnessing the rise of Nazism before he became secretary of state in Rome.

“We know the pope was upset and we know he knew they would be killed,” he said. “He had his secretary of state summon the German ambassador and tell him he was unhappy.”“We also already know that the ambassador replied that the order came from very high up, adding that the Vatican could lodge a complaint, even if it would displease people. The secretary of state effectively responded, ‘No, we’ll leave it to you.

Hint: It was apathy and self-interest.

The genocide of millions already speaks volumes.

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