ROME — Pope Francis announced on Monday that he would open archives from the pontificate of Pius XII, possibly allowing historians to shed light on the actions of the pope during World War II, in particular his response to the Holocaust. Some critics of Pius XII maintain that he was shamefully silent during the Nazi massacre of Jews during the war, while others claim he saved thousands of lives by tasking the Roman Catholic Church with assisting victims of persecution. Francis said the archives would open on March 2, 2020, the 81st anniversary of Pius’s election to pope. He added that he was allowing access to Pius’s private papers “with a serene and confident mind” and that serious scholarship would be able to evaluate “in the correct light” the highs and lows of a pontificate that spanned nearly two decades, from 1939 to 1958.

Source: New York Times March 04, 2019 13:29 UTC