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Was Pius XII an accomplice of Hitler or, conversely, as more recent theories argue, worked discreetly to save the lives of millions of besieged Jews during the occupation of Rome ? From next March 2, the Vatican will publish the documentation related to the Pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) preserved in the so-called Vatican Secret Archive, which a few months ago changed its name to be renamed simply Apostolic Archive. 16 million documents that will clarify the relationship of Pius XII with Nazi Germany and his questioned role during World War II.

"The Church is not afraid of History. On the contrary, it loves her." With this phrase, Pope Francis announced just one year ago the decision to open for information to historians and experts the information held by the Holy See since 1939 , when Pius XII began his pontificate , until his death due to heart failure in the Summer residence of Castel Gandolfo in 1958. It has taken 14 years of work and the collaboration of about 70 people - including officials and collaborators - to be able to order almost two decades of information so far reserved.

Documents belonging to the Secretary of State, diplomatic, religious and political reports prepared by the nunciatures of the Holy See around the world, the congregations of the Curia and other Vatican agencies ordered along 85 kilometers of shelves in the heart of the Vatican , will allow to shed some light on one of the darkest periods in the history of the Catholic Church . "Now it will be the job of historians to see the documents honestly and critically and compare them with different sources," Bishop Sergio Pagano, head of the Vatican Apostolic Archive, defended during his presentation yesterday to the press.

Pius XII lived with concern the rise of Nazism during his time as a nuncio in Germany and, later, as Secretary of State of the Vatican for Foreign Affairs, as his biographers agree. Instead, once elected Pope in 1939, the pontiff avoided publicly condemning the crimes of Nazism and the mass deportations of Jews. He looked the other way

- his critics say - even when a few meters from the Vatican, in the Hebrew neighborhood of the Italian capital, more than 1,000 Jews were arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, of which only 17 returned alive. For some years, however, experts are divided and some historians argue that the Catholic Church, with the Roman pontiff in the lead, helped thousands of Jews escape from Nazi persecution , hiding them in parishes or providing them with false documentation.

His possible complicity with Hitler's Germany has tarnished almost two decades of pontificate and slowed his canonization. In 2009 Benedict XVI took the first step towards his beatification by declaring Pacelli "venerable." However, the cause has since stopped waiting, probably, for an end to the controversies surrounding his pontificate.

The priest Alejandro Cifres Giménez, responsible for the archives related to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the Vatican department that is responsible for these processes already has all the information about Pius XII, but perhaps, he acknowledges, " it is not appropriate canonize a person on whom great controversies weigh . " The publication of the archives will allow, according to the Spanish archivist, to discover the "enormous renovation" that the figure of Pacelli supposed and his "influence" in the Second Vatican Council.

The process of classifying the archives of the pontificate of Pius XII began in 2006, when documents relating to his predecessor, Pius XI, were opened. Then documents relating to the Second Republic or the Spanish Civil War were already made public. With the opening of the archives from 1939 it will be possible to know the communication between the Vatican and the apostolic nunciature in Spain during the first years of the Franco dictatorship, as confirmed by EL MUNDO the archivist Luca Carboni, responsible for the documentation related to the diplomatic representations of the Vatican abroad.

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  • The Vatican
  • WWII
  • Adolf Hitler
  • Auschwitz
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