Furore about the Italian "Schindler"

Over the last few weeks there has been considerable press given to a claim that Giovanni Palatucci, described by some as the Italian Schindler, was a Nazi collaborator.  This article appeared in Foward.  Palatucci's uncle was the bishop of Campagna in whose diocese was found an internment camp for Italian and foreign Jews.  Part of the story around Giovanni Palatucci was that he "funnelled" Jews from Fiume to Campagna where they would be safer.  It would appear that much of the received history needs to be re-examined.

The wikipedia entry on Palatucci contains a handy summary of the issues surrounding the man.  More information may be found on the ADL site and in the Sydney Morning Herald.

For a comprehensive treatment of the subject see the Huffington Post with its links.

Catholics Defend 'Italian Schindler' on Nazi Claim

Vatican Paper Rejects Charge Giovanni Palatucci Collaborated


The Vatican newspaper said on Saturday a decision by scholars to brand a wartime Italian previously praised for saving Jews as a Nazi collaborator was part of an attempt to smear the Catholic Church during the papacy of Pope Pius XII.

An article, titled “To Strike at the Church of Pius XII” and written by historian Anna Foa, said the decision to re-classify Giovanni Palatucci, a Catholic, as a collaborator was at best hasty and more study was needed.

Palatucci had been previously credited with saving around 5,000 Jews while he was police official in the city of Fiume, now part of Croatia. He died in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1945 at the age of 35.

In 1990, Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial honoured Palatucci as a Righteous Among the Nations, the highest recognition for those who helped Jews during World War Two.

But earlier this week The New York Times reported that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington was removing mention of his exploits from an exhibition after officials learned of new evidence that purports to show he was a Nazi collaborator.

In her article in the Vatican newspaper, Foa, a Jewish-Italian author and historian at Rome’s La Sapienza University, said the target of the move against Palatucci was “the Church of Pius XII”.

“The impression is that ... in targeting Palatucci the desire was essentially to hit a Catholic involved in rescuing Jews ..., ” she wrote.

“But this is ideology and not history,” she wrote.

The issue of whether the Vatican and the Church under Pius XII did all it could to help Jews had dogged Catholic- Jewish relations for decades. Pius reigned from 1939 to 1958.

Critics of Pius say he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust but his supporters say he worked behind the scenes to encourage the Church to save Jews because speaking out more forcefully would have worsened the situation for all.

Foa wrote that more documentation and study was necessary about Palatucci “from comparisons with other situations and not from interpretation”.

The New York Times article said more than a dozen scholars from the Centro Primo Levi at the Center for Jewish History in New York reviewed nearly 700 documents before concluding that Palatucci was a Nazi collaborator and not a saviour of Jews.

Among other things, the scholars concluded that Palatucci was sent to Dachau not because he helped Jews but because German occupiers accused him of embezzlement and treason. 

Giovanni Palatucci 1909-1945

Presentation on Pius XII at ADL 10 January

In an earlier post I mentioned that I would be speaking at the Anti-Defamation League's New York office on Thursday 10 January.  It was a very successful evening and although the group was on the small side - about 50 people - the quality of the questions was excellent and the conversations that followed were encouraging for those of us who try and maintain the integrity of the historical process with regard to Pope Pius XII.

It was a pleasure to meet people who had only been known to me via email, especially Professor Deborah Dwork who came down from Clark University, MA for the presentation.  It was also great to meet people from a wide range of inter-faith groups, education and other professions who share an interest in getting to understand the historical and contemporary issues surround Pius XII.

I repeat my thanks to Abe Foxman and all the ADL who made the evening possible and who have shown once again their commitment to ongoing professional dialogue on issues that cause concern between Christians and Jews.  I have to again thank Rabbi Eric Greenberg and Lynne Rabinoff for their support and friendship.  These evenings are very important in ensuring that the voices of the "via media" are heard and understood.

ADL has posted the recording of the presentation via YouTube.  I invite you to view it here.

Paul on Pius at the ADL New York 10 January

Vacations are wonderful times of the year, and I have been enjoying mine, but it is nearly time to get back into the work mode and so I am heading off to New York shortly for this special occasion.  

If you are able to join me at the Anti-Defamation League National Headquarters I would very much enjoy meeting you.  Please follow the details given below.  I am especially grateful to Abraham Foxman, the ADL, Lynne Rabinoff, Lauren Steinberg, Palgrave Macmillan and my good friend Eric Greenberg for making this event possible.

Robert Ventresca on access to the war archives

The Vatican and the Holocaust: waiting for the critical documents.

Robert Ventresca's latest article taken from the National Post (Canada) on current research into Pius XII is both scholarly and timely.

For 40 years now the Vatican consistently has demonstrated initiative in the field of Catholic-Jewish relations. Every Pope since John XXIII has shown foresight in promoting mutual understanding and dialogue between Catholics and Jews. With the publication of the second volume of his book on the life of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict XVI continues in this tradition by affirming, among other things, that Jewish-Christian relations over the centuries has been marred by “misunderstandings” which have “weighed down our history.”


Chief among these deeply consequential misunderstandings has been the stubborn myth that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. In a stimulating review of the Pope’s new book, Geza Vermes, a distinguished professor of Jewish studies at Oxford, rightly applauds Benedict’s “courage for a Christian leader of his disposition” in conceding that parts of the gospel account of Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ should not to be taken as “historical fact.”

In a similar vein, Benedict XVI could make history if he were to take another courageous move to accelerate the opening of the Vatican’s wartime archives. In doing so, the Pope would help to pave the way for a full and proper historical assessment of the Vatican’s response to the Holocaust.


For all of the strides made since the 1960s in Jewish-Catholic relations, open questions over the Vatican’s role during the Second World War, especially its response to Nazi persecution of Jews, remain an obvious source of misunderstanding — exacerbated unnecessarily by the sluggish pace to fulfill the promise to make access to the wartime archives a priority.


The extent to which the archives issue remains a real sore spot was evident at a recent international gathering in Paris, convened to celebrate 40 years of constructive Jewish-Catholic dialogue, when the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reiterated its call for the Vatican to work with qualified scholars and institutions to facilitate immediate access to all the unpublished files of the Vatican’s wartime archives.


Particularly troubling for the ADL, and for a dedicated contingent of eager historians around the world, is the absence of a consistent, concrete timetable for open access. At one time, there were widespread expectations that the records would be catalogued and open to researchers by 2011-2012. In 2010, though, Bishop Sergio Pagano, the Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, tempered these hopes by pointing out that the “technical preparation” of some 16 million documents from Pius XII’s 19-year long pontificate will not be completed until 2015 at the earliest. Even then, the reigning Pope will have to make a final decision on when to make these records available to researchers.


Patience may well be a virtue but, as the ADL’s Rabbi Eric Greenberg suggested in Paris recently, for Holocaust survivors and their families, the time to act is now.


There is a simple but compelling logic to Rabbi Greenberg’s point that what is at stake here is “truth and historical accuracy.” Greenberg reasons that opening the archives now would have profound symbolic meaning for aging survivors and their families, whatever the documentation were to show.


Vatican officials have long maintained that open access to the documentation from Pius XII’s pontificate, including the war years, is not yet feasible on a technicality. The concerns are eminently reasonable. For instance, it is clear that the task of cataloguing such a vast, complex collection has strained the material limits of existing resources. Those of us who have worked in the Vatican archives know well the breadth, depth and complexity of the collections. We know too how support systems are being strained by the increased demand for access to this unique repository of precious documentation.

Where there is the proverbial will, of course, there is a way.

Successive Popes have proved as much through a series of authoritative moves. The cake of custom broke decisively in 1964 when Paul VI authorized a team of respected Jesuit scholars to edit and publish select portions of the wartime archives, drawn largely from the records of the Vatican’s political and diplomatic offices. The result, of course, is the set of 11 massive volumes of documentation that remains to this day the single most important published source of information about the Vatican’s wartime policies.


The Vatican has no hard and fast rule about access to its archives, and, as always, papal discretion reigns supreme. The general rule has been to leave the archives closed for at least 100 years after a given period or event. Here, too, though the Popes have taken the lead in setting precedent. Consider, in particular, Benedict’s remarkable decision in 2006 to open the archives for the entire pontificate of Pius XI (1922-1939). This gave researchers unprecedented access to the Vatican’s most sensitive documents from the troubled decades in between the two world wars. Among the real gems of this collection are the personal notes of Pius XI’s Secretary of State in the 1930s, Eugenio Pacelli – the future Pius XII.

In opening modern papal archives to the scrutiny of historical research, the Popes have demonstrated a serious commitment to deliver on the Church’s promise to confront its past with honesty and scientific rigour. John Paul II once said that the Church “is not afraid of the truth that emerges from history,” adding that it entrusts the study of the past to “patient, honest, scholarly reconstruction.”


Historians are uniquely placed to take up the work of honest reconstruction of the past. As John Paul II put it, “this is the reason why the first step [historical judgment] consists in asking the historians to offer help toward a reconstruction, as precise as possible, of the events, of the customs, of the mentality of the time, in light of the historical context of the epoch.”

Historians stand at the ready to help towards just such a precise reconstruction of the past. But we need the meaningful collaboration of the Vatican archives to permit us to do our work to the best of our ability, in keeping with the conventions of our craft. Hence the powerful logic of these renewed calls for immediate access to the Vatican’s wartime archives.

Selective access to the documents begets a selective reading of history. The image that emerges of Pius XII and the Vatican during the war inevitably is partial, provisional and vulnerable to manipulation by apologist and critic alike. Worst of all, selective access to the archives continues to feed the suspicion of critics who already are prone to see a cover-up behind those imposing Vatican walls.

For the sake of truth and accuracy, and to pay homage to decades of fruitful Catholic-Jewish dialogue, it should be possible to conceive of the means by which serious scholars and institutions can be invited to the table to consider even a targeted study of the wartime archives. This would help to begin to answer some of the most contentious, most relevant questions. It would also be an act of good faith, commensurate with the Church’s stated commitment to furthering Jewish-Catholic understanding and interaction.

It could temper fears of a premature move to have Pius XII made a saint, and would bring the methods of historical scholarship to bear as the Vatican studies this controversial cause. There may very well be ample justification to consider Pius XII a worthy candidate for sainthood. But it would be hazardous for the Holy See to delude itself into thinking that it has at its disposal a definitive historical assessment of this long, pioneering but complex pontificate.

It may be that even with the opening of the rest of the archives we will find ourselves no further along than we are at present. Yet, even if the enigma remains around the controversial wartime Pope, at least the stigma of secrecy stemming from the current state of archival access would be alleviated; maybe even removed entirely.


R. A. Ventresca is a historian at King’s University College at The University of Western Ontario and is currently writing a book on Pope Pius XII.






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It's been quiet in cyber-space of late ... Pius XII?

When I get a chance of late to have a look at the google alerts and my inbox, I have noticed that the news on Pius XII has been relatively slim.  That's not to say there has been nothing, just no where near what has been the usual volume that I have become accustomed to.

In the last week there have been reports on a lecture given by Ronald Rychlak at Wabash College and two news releases from the ADL in New York.

Ronald Rychlak is no stranger to the "Pius Wars".  He is one of the more articulate academic apologists.  That is not say that his writing is convincing - I find it not.  The Wabash lecture re-visited familiar territory and a familiar theme, that it was the USSR that was behind the blackening of Pius XII's name and reputation.  The "black legend" relies heavily on the story of a former Romanian secret service major-general, Ion Mihai Pacepa, but, more significantly, on the accusations of Papal complicity in the crimes of the Nazis made by French and Polish Catholics as early as 1939, just after Pacelli's election as pope - two decades before the KGB stories were hatched.  Giovanni Sale, the respected Jesuit historian has written extensively on the "black legend" and helps to provide the evidential base for its strange history.  Sandro Magister, editor and writer of the Italian column Chiesa: espresso on line published a detailed and lengthy article on Sale and his research in early 2009.  (This was not the first time he had written on the topic.  There is an earlier column from 2005.)

Rychlak is entitled to his opinion, but not to claims that he had access to Vatican archives that remain under embargo, which is what the article states quite bluntly.  What are these archives?

The ADL has published two media releases of interest in the last week.  Firstly Abraham Foxman, National Director of the ADL wrote congratulating the pope on his recent statements acknowledging without any hint of ambiguity, that the Jews were not, and are not, collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.  Foxman's words are worth quoting:

This is an important and historic moment for Catholic-Jewish relations, as Pope Benedict XVI is now moving ahead with implementing the second phase of Vatican II. It is especially significant because it deepens and gives historians context crucial in having the doctrine expressed in Nostra Aetate translated down to the pews.


The 1965 Second Vatican Council document Nostra Aetate rejected the deicide charge on theological grounds. But continuing in this tradition with specificity, Pope Benedict has rejected the previous teachings and perversions that have helped to foster and reinforce anti-Semitism through the centuries.

The fact that this Pope is a theologian, and has served as a defender of the faith, makes this statement from the Holy See that much more significant for now and for future generations. He is continuing in the storied tradition of Pope John Paul II in rejecting the calumny of those charges and in taking Nostra Aetate and Vatican II to the next level.

The second ADL media release is interesting for the strange comments by two of the Catholic representatives at the recent 21st International Liaison Committee Meeting in Paris (February 27 - March 2, 2011)   At the meeting the ADL made another call to the Vatican to set a definite date for the release of the files from Pius XII's papacy.  Dates have come and gone with no clear picture of when the ASV will allow public access.  Cardinal Peter Turkson and Cardinal Kurt Koch said that there is an argument for the Vatican to withhold release of some archival material from the war years, if it was found to be detrimental to the Holy See.  Historians should be shouting from the rooftops against this ham-fisted attempt to justify a form of censorship.  Given that all the major players are now dead, what has the church to gain from appearing to hide secrets?

An anonymous post! Oh the wonders of the internet.

True to form it did not take long before reactions to my last post on Bob Keeler's article began to circulate.  That's fine and to be expected, even encouraged, but let's keep it up front and honest.  The comment from Pave The Way below was forwarded to me from somewhere outside Australia by a reader of this blog.  My responses are in red.

Our LI (Long Island, New York) based Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF) is at the international forefront of revealing the documents of the papacy of Pope Pius XII. This is questionable.  Much of what PTW has posted on its website has already been published in other sources, such as Actes et Documents, by the ASV (Vatican Secret Archives), in independent research undertaken by scholars such as Hubert Wolf, Thomas Brechenmacher - and me - as well as in mainstream histories by Michael Phayer, Susan Zuccotti etc. Use of the word "revealing" is itself revealing.  Does this suggest that material has been hidden?  The published works of Pius XII have been available since 1939.  The unpublished material, all the material in the ASV 1939-1958, has not been published because it is under embargo until at least 2013.  PTW has published a lot of material from many sources such as newspapers, diaries and some unpublished archival sources (such as the files from Campagna that I read and commented on in late 2009 - the full report can be found on the Anti-Defamation League website as well as PTW). Therefore the opening statement of PTW's comment is somewhat misleading.

As the Wikileak organization, we have over 40,000 pages of original documentation, news articles and eyewitness video testimony all posted publicly on our website, proving Pius XII was one of the great heroes of WWII. I feel I must sound like a broken record here ... much of the 40,000 pages include the freely available material of ADSS (published between 1965-1981) and which has been online since early 2010 via the Vatican website and PTW.  PTW cannot claim to have "discovered" this material.  The news articles etc have also been readily available for years.  PTW has rendered a service by collating this information on one website.  However, there is a discrepancy between posting material without comment and historical analysis and then claiming that this material "proves" Pius XII was a "great hero of WWII".  Until the whole historical record is made available to public scrutiny, such accolades are, even if deserved, premature.

Paul Oshea (sic - my name is O'Shea, an old Irish name!) and literally all of the other critics have not ever set foot in the Vatican archives, which were opened in 2003 covering 65% of the ministry of Pacelli (Pius XII) for the years up to 1939. Mr Krupp, founder of PTW knows full well that I have not stepped foot inside the ASV.  Mr Krupp also knows full well and has acknowledged this on Galus Australia (the reader will find my comment below - May 26, Gary Krupp's response follows after) that I did not need to step inside the ASV.  My work with the ASV was conducted entirely via internet.  I sent document requests to the staff at ASV and they scanned the material and then sent it to me.  I had no need to be physically present - Australia is a long way away! - the internet has changed the nature of historical research.  As to the bald allegation that "literally all of the other critics have not ever set foot in the Vatican archives" - it is not true.  Hubert Wolf and Thomas Brechenmacher, both scholars of international repute, have spent time in ASV.  In fact their online projects working with ASV demonstrate the extent of serious historians to work with the archives to make the documentation available.  A simple and cursory examination of the two websites established by these men puts paid to PTW's risible claim.

The Jewish Catholic Commission ended in failure because one of the participants, Dr. Bernard Suchecky, leaked confidential information to the media in violation with the agreement. The participants knew very well from the start that it was impossible to see the un-catalogued closed war years documents in the archives.  This may be true, but I suspect there were other reasons behind the collapse of the International Commission.  However, the story of the "failure" is one that remains to be fully told, by both sides.

The 47 question you speak of have now been answered. PTWF conducted a two-day session in Rome in April, 2010 and the 9 hours of videos of the responses can be viewed on our website www.ptwf.org. "

The two-day session in Rome was attended by a group of interested parties that included no scholars or historians, with the exception of Napolitano, of the period whose work is critical of Pius XII.  I find this odd.  At the Jerusalem symposium hosted by Yad Vashem and the Apostolic Nunciature in March 2009 there were people from all sides of the debate.  I was one of them.  We met in an atmosphere of professional collegiality and discussed issues about Pius XII with respect and openness of mind.

Benedict on Pius - New Zealand and USA Today

The fallout from the pope's interview-now-book continues.  Ultra-orthodox Catholics are up in arms at the very suggestion that the man they have championed as the worthy successor to John Paul appears to have had a change of mind on the use of condoms.  That is one issue. The other is, of course, Benedict's comments about Pius XII.  I made some comments of my own in an earlier post and won't repeat them here.  These two articles, one from the Southland Times (New Zealand) and an op-ed by Cathy Grossman of USA Today.  There are no new facts, but there are some nuances of interpretation.

I was asked a couple of years ago by a reporter in the USA if I believed the seemingly never-ending battle over Pius was indicative of a "culture war" within contemporary Catholicism.  At first I thiought the question was overblown.  Now I think the reporter was spot on.  Watching the reactions to Benedict over the last week has revealed a new layer of internal Catholic upset.  Whether it be condoms or the role of Pius XII, Catholics (who care) are pretty much divided between those who believe any suggestion that Eugenio Pacelli made mistakes is tantamount to heresy, and those who believe any suggestion that the same man should be canonised is tantamount to supporting flat earthers.  And for those of us who try to walk the via media, the road gets narrower every day.

The Southland Times



Last updated 05:00 24/11/2010


OPINION: Maybe they need the Devil's Advocate back.


The Catholic Church's interest in making the loudly decried Pope Pius XII a saint may be an appalling example of a recalcitrant church stuck in its own holy huddle, showing supreme disregard for ugly truths about a leader who, to protect his own people, abandoned the Jews to Nazi persecution before and during the war.


Or it may be a case of the church defying a chorus of damning anti-Pius rhetoric because it really does have the information in its capacious vaults to prove that this was one cruelly defamed pope.


We are not, as yet, in a position to know which scenario is true.


But the church must surely stump up with the evidence, which needs to be, in a word, compelling. And not just to the satisfaction of Pope Benedict and his cardinals.


This is a case in which the church disregards at its peril the views of the watching world. To take the view that whomsoever Catholics choose to call saint is a matter of no legitimate interest to those outside the faith would be a vanity that ignores the hugely provocative implications.


At such times we surely miss the rigour of the Devil's Advocate; a role that served the church for centuries. The advocate, usually a lawyer, was appointed by church authorities to put the case against anyone's elevation to sainthood.


Pope John Paul II abolished the position and replaced it with a Promoter of Justice, who is more a tester of accuracy, and apparently an altogether more agreeable type, considering how the number of new sainthoods went through the fluffy-clouded roof during John Paul's watch.


Attempts to rehabilitate Pius' reputation have already been published, by Jewish as well as Christian writers, casting him as something between a Scarlet Pimpernel figure and an Oskar Schindler quietly set about offering strategic and effective sanctuaries, saving as many Jewish lives as he could, in preference to impotently railing against the wrongdoers.


The Vatican points to a wealth of documentary evidence that Pius ordered monasteries to shelter Jews, though Benedict admits he had not, himself, studied it all.


Within the Catholic church, the view has been put that liberal Catholics have been demonising Pius as a Holocaust quisling because it's an effective way to undermine the traditionalists and to advance their own reformist agendas.


Mind you, even if a bit of corrective revision does prove to be in order on Pius' behalf, this still raises the question of whether there is a distinction to be drawn between a man being not half as bad as he's painted, and a saint. In this case it would apparently be a saint who, rightly or wrongly, made some fairly tactical decisions about the best result gettable, rather than the come-what-may approach that surely typified the more traditional saints. Especially the martyred ones. Still, behind the church's invocation of life on a higher plane, you will quite often find its representatives are capable of all-too-human assessments and, yes, manipulations.


And, can we airily conclude, although the Devil's Advocate is no longer among us, the Vatican may still informally recruit the testimony of critics of a candidate for canonisation. A columnist Christopher Hitchens was asked to testify against the beatification of Mother Theresa, which he lightly described as "representing the Evil One, as it were, pro bono".

 
Pope book reopens Jewish-Catholic rift
 
 
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY



A newly released interview with Pope Benedict XVI revives a bitter Catholic-Jewish dispute over whether the Roman Catholic Church did enough to save Jews from Hitler.


Wartime Pope Pius XII was a "righteous" pope who "saved more Jews than anyone," Benedict told German journalist Peter Seewald in a book out today, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.


But Jewish Holocaust experts sharply disagree.


"If the Catholic Church had any evidence, it would long ago have been taken out of the dustbins of the Vatican and shown to the world," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. He noted that Pius XII saved Jews in Rome in 1944, "but where was he (from 1939 to 1943)? … He could have made a critical difference."


Theologian Victoria Barnett, director of church relations at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, says, "We don't know what (Pius XII) did, because the Vatican archives are not open. We know that only 1,100 of Rome's 10,000 Jews were deported; the rest hid, many of them in convents, churches or monasteries, but it's not clear what his role in those rescues was, because we don't have the evidence."


Barnett said Benedict brings up a larger question about all leaders in that era: "Not just what people did or did not do, but what was the expectation of moral leadership?"


Abraham Foxman, Anti-Defamation League director and a Holocaust survivor, called the pope's remarks "a great disservice to the families of Holocaust victims, qualified historians and Catholic-Jewish relations."


All three echoed scholars' decade-old call for access to the Vatican's wartime archives. The Vatican has said all the records of Pius XII's 1939-58 papacy must to be catalogued first.


Jewish frustration with the Vatican's support of Pius XII deepened last December when the church recognized Pius XII as a Servant of God for his "heroic virtues."


It's the first step toward possible beatification, when someone is proven to have persuaded God to work a miracle, and, ultimately, sainthood, which requires two proven miracles.

ADL releases statement on Pope Benedict's comments on Pius XII

ADL REACTS TO POPE BENEDICT’S PRAISE

OF PREDECESSOR’S ACTIONS DURING HOLOCAUST

New York, NY, November 22, 2010

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today renewed its call for the opening of the complete Vatican archives on the Second World War following remarks by Pope Benedict XVI calling his predecessor, Pope Pius XII, a “great, righteous” man who “saved more Jews than anyone else” during the Holocaust.


The statements attributed to Pope Benedict XVI were made in a book-length interview with a German journalist to be published this week.


Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:


Pope Benedict XVI’s unqualified praise for Pope Pius XII’s alleged efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust does a great disservice to the families of Holocaust victims, qualified historians and Catholic-Jewish relations. Pope Benedict’s conclusions that Pius XII, “was one of the great righteous men and that he saved more Jews than anyone else” amounts to a double standard – ignoring the Vatican’s own position calling on Jewish institutions not to come to conclusions about the World War II-era pope until all the evidence is in.

What the Vatican needs to do, and can do, is release the secret archives concerning Pius XII for the years 1939-1946, something Cardinal Jorge Mejia promised the Jewish community he would do 10 years ago. Our understanding is the war years have already been catalogued and there is no legitimate rule preventing them from being made public.

The Vatican’s argument that it must wait until all the millions of records of Pope Pius XII entire papacy, which lasted until 1957 [sic], are catalogued is questionable. For the sake of Holocaust survivors and their families, for the sake of historical truth and for the sake of Catholic-Jewish relations, the secret Vatican archives must be opened now, not in six years, and the light of truth must shine on the record of Pius XII once and for all.
 
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.