Opening of the Pontificate of Pius XII and research in our archive
About a year ago, Pope Francis announced to the world during an audience with the staff of the Vatican Secret Archives, the opening of the Pontificate of Pius XII to consultation by researchers, starting from March 2, 2020.
Recall that the regulation provided for the consultation of documents for the religious archives until February 1939, election of Pope Pacelli. There were two main reasons for this.
It is always and only the Pontiff to determine the opening of the documentation of the Holy See to consultation and traditionally opens “by pontificates” having to identify a periodization. The Pontificate of Pius XII opened shortly before the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the subsequent outbreak of World War II, the Jewish question, mass genocides, September 8, 1943, liberation, the post-war period, reaching the gates of the economic boom and the opposition between the Soviet and Western bloc.
A complex pontificate, the object of particular attention by historians who will now have a large amount of documentation available for a rigorous and adequate analysis.
Recalling the words of Pope Francis, «the Church is not afraid of history but rather loves it and would like to love it more and better, as God loves it».
Once this important day has arrived, awaited by scholars, our archive too – in compliance with the pontifical regulations to which it adheres in the matter of consultation,- opens to researchers the documentation produced during the pontificate of Pius XII.
Unlike the Vatican Secret Archive, which has worked hard in the last fourteen years to ensure the consultation of this documentary mode, our archive does not yet have all the inventories, however the archivist is available to guide the search.
Although we cannot give an account of all the possible research topics that could interest our users, let us briefly remember which documents best testify to the Second World War told by the Jesuit maps.
You can retrace the events of the war through the – numerous – diaries of the house, the residences, following the conflict in Italy and in part in Albania from the declaration of war in 1940 until the occupation of Italian soil and its liberation.
There are also available, where preserved, the personal diaries of some Jesuits, such as those of Fr. Massaruti who arrive until the year of his death, 1958, now entirely searchable.
The letters of the Provincials, the correspondence of the individual fathers, the historiae domus, the reports of the missions are open for consultation.
The diaries of the colleges and residences also shed light on the help that the Jesuits have granted to fellow citizens of the Jewish religion or to those who were wanted or in danger, welcoming and hiding them; episodes only partially known through the testimony of the direct protagonists as in the case of the Sonnino brothers saved by Fr. Raffaele Cubbe, proclaimed decades later Just among the Nations.
Maria Macchi
