ROME - The Vatican plans to post selected documents from its
World War II secret archives online, according to a Catholic news
agency.
The move came at the initiative of Pave the Way, a US-based
foundation that promotes interfaith dialogue and has striven to counter
criticism that wartime Pope Pius XII ignored Jewish suffering during
the Holocaust, Zenit news agency reported Friday.
Pave the Way offered to digitize some 5,125 descriptions and copies
of documents from the closed section of the Vatican archives, from the
period of March 1939 to May 1945, Zenit reported. These would then be
posted on the Web sites of both the Vatican and Pave the Way.
Pave the Way head Gary Krupp told Zenit that the documents in
question had been "previously published and mostly ignored," such as
"the 'Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs a la Seconde Guerre
Mondiale [Acts and Documents of the Holy See relative to the Second
World War]'" between 1965 and 1981.
Krupp told Zenit that the publication of these documents was "not
meant to be a substitute for the full access" to the Vatican archives,
"but will absolutely show the unique efforts of Pope Pius XII and the
dangers he was forced to operate under a direct threat from the Nazi
regime."