The Vatican will be unable to meet its promised New Year's Day target for the release of documents on the Holy See's relations with Germany in the years leading up to Second World War, saying it is overwhelmed by the huge mass of material.
It now plans to make the material available in mid-February as part of Pope John Paul's wishes to show the Vatican "has nothing to fear," said the Rev Sergio Pagano, head of the Vatican archives. "The date was too soon. We are not ready with the numbering , the seals and the binding of the thousands of documents involved," Pagano said today.
The release is the Vatican's response to demands by Jewish groups for access to the archives dealing with Pius XII, the Second World War pope. Critics of the pope charge that he failed to raise his voice and use his position to head off the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis.
Supporters of the pope insist he made every effort possible to help Jews and other victims, using quiet diplomacy. The documents scheduled for release will not involve the papacy of Pius XII, but cover the years 1922-1939 when he was a Vatican diplomat in Germany and later secretary of state. Specifically, they cover the Vatican diplomatic missions in Berlin and Munich.
Critics say he was pro-German, and this influenced his papacy. Pagano said that later next year the Vatican hopes to start releasing more than three million files on prisoners of war, missing persons and some Holocaust victims, which they are preparing on CD-ROMs.
They cover the years 1939-1945, during which the Vatican set up offices to help relatives trace family members. "These offices were set up at the request of Pius XII, that pope who is so criticised," Pagano said.
He said nuns worked on the files in their Roman convents during the night and a Vatican truck would pass by in the morning to pick them up. The files also include daily appeals broadcast by Vatican Radio.
A joint Catholic-Jewish commission studying the record of Pius XII disbanded in the face of Vatican refusal to fully open its wartime archives. Pagano said he hopes the forthcoming release will help to overcome the "bitter taste" left on both sides by the commission's break-up.
AP