First, Kubowitzki had asked the pope to issue a public declaration denouncing anti-Semitism. His successor, Pope Gregory XII, supposedly sold off a large number of archival materials in 1406, including some of the papal registers. "[9][b], In 1855, Augustin Theiner, prefect of the Archive, began to publish multi-volume collections of documents from the archive. “If, then, the Jews do not observe the commitment they assumed”—here Dell’Acqua added in parentheses, “which is likely”—“the fault will then be theirs and the Church will always be able, with reason, to charge them with hypocrisy.”. Scholars need an introductory letter from either a recognized institute of research or a suitably qualified person in their field of historical research. compendium of the social doctrine of the church The newly available Vatican documents, reported here for the first time, offer fresh insights into larger questions of how the Vatican thought about and reacted to the mass murder of Europe’s Jews, and into the Vatican’s mindset immediately after the war about the Holocaust, the Jewish people, and the Roman Catholic Church’s role and prerogatives as an institution. Finally, it advised that in whatever action Gerlier took, no mention be made of the role being played behind the scenes by the Vatican, “so as not to compromise the Holy See in such a delicate and sensational dispute.”. Carter intends to publicly reveal all the information The U. Neither Pietro Tacchi Venturi’s proposed tepid, anti-Semitic Vatican protest of the Germans’ murderous campaign against the Jews in Italy nor Angelo Dell’Acqua’s memo in response was included in that massive publication. The Church, the consultants advised, should make all possible efforts to prevent the Finaly children from being returned to their Jewish family. It was a struggle that pitted France’s Jewish community, so recently devastated by the Holocaust, against the country’s Roman Catholic hierarchy, which insisted that the boys were now Catholic and must not be raised by Jews. On September 21, 1945, the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, Léon Kubowitzki, had come to see him to make two requests. It was Montini—the future Pope Paul VI—to whom the pope would later entrust the management of the Finaly case. Following the death, in 1944, of his first secretary of state, Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Pius XII had taken the unusual step of not appointing a successor, instead dividing the work between his two chief deputies, Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Battista Montini. Francis said that Pius's legacy had been "debated and even criticized (one might say with some prejudice or exaggeration)", that "The Church is not afraid of history", and that he anticipated "appropriate criticism". [17], Though the archive has developed policies that restrict access to material by pontificate, with access granted 75 years after the close of a pope's reign, popes have granted exceptions. The pope apparently thought this worth considering, at least in some form; two days later, Montini prepared a message to the nuncio in Paris, complaining about Cardinal Gerlier and asking for his opinion on whether going ahead with the proposed article would be a good idea. At the same time, the Holy Office insisted, any agreement requiring the boys’ return to France would have to meet two conditions. It would be of great assistance, said the rabbi, if the pope would issue a public plea to the priests of Europe calling on them to reveal the location of orphaned Jewish children who remained in the hands of Catholic families and institutions. But Richard’s wife, Auguste, had escaped to safety in Britain. Did Montini’s involvement on Pius XII’s behalf bother him at the time? Marguerite wrote to Brun to thank her for taking care of her nephews and to ask for her assistance in arranging for their travel. He is also opening the archive of World War II-era Pope Pius XII next year, eight years early. Yet, although heavily identified with his patron, Montini had a mind of his own. 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