VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press
March 4, 2019
By Frances D’Emilio
Declaring that the church “isn’t afraid of history,” Pope Francis said Monday he has decided to open up the Vatican archives on World War II-era Pope Pius XII, who has been criticized by Jews of staying silent on the Holocaust and not doing enough to save lives.
Describing that criticism as fruit of “some prejudice or exaggeration,” Francis told officials and personnel of the Vatican Secret Archives that the documentation would be open to researchers starting March 2, 2020.
The move could speed up Pius’ path to possible sainthood, a complex process that in Pius’ case bore the weight of questions of what he knew and did about Nazi Germany’s systematic killing of Europe’s Jews.
Pius was elected pope on March 2, 1939, six months before World War II erupted in Europe. He died on Oct. 9, 1958, at the Vatican summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome.
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