143 Years of Papal Documents in One Click, by Sandro Magister, Chiesa, March 27, 2010

143 Years of Papal Documents in One Click

By Sandro Magister
Chiesa
March 27, 2010

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1342687?eng=y

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VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican has put on the web the records of the Holy See from the past century and a half, including those on the second world war and on Pius XII and the Jews. A user's guide

For two days now, all the official records of the Holy See from 1865 to 2007 have been freely available on the internet, in pdf format, on the Vatican website:

> Acta Sanctae Sedis, 1865-1908

> Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1909-2007

Also available online are the twelve large volumes of the records and documents of the Holy See relative to the period of the second world war, from 1939 to 1945, the collection requested by Paul VI in 1964 and compiled between 1965 and 1981 by the Jesuit historians Pierre Blet, Angelo Martini, Burkhart Schneider and Robert A. Graham:

> Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale

Part of one of the index pages of the last volume is reproduced above.

In anticipation of the complete opening of the Vatican archives of Pius XII's entire pontificate, the "Actes et documents" of the period 1939-1945 already make available to everyone an enormous amount of documentation, through which it is possible to reconstruct the role of the pope and of the Church of Rome in the global conflict.

As for the "Acta Sanctae Sedis" and the "Acta Apostolicae Sedis," these are the official collection, year by year, of the major documents, audiences, appointments, etc. of the pope and of the Roman curia.