NEW YORK, Jul 24, 01 (CWNews.com) - A group of Catholic and Jewish researchers have ended their inquiry into the role of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust and World War Two, complaining that the Vatican refused to give them access to confidential archives.
The committee was jointly established by the Vatican and Jewish groups in 1999 following accusations that Pope Pius XII did not do enough to save Jews from the Holocaust. While many Jewish groups and the State of Israel honored the Pope in the years after the war, crediting him with saving 700,000 Jews, more recent critics contend Pius did not do enough.
Last year, as part of its study, the study committee asked the Vatican for full access to its wartime archives after determining that the volumes of already published information was not sufficient. That request was denied because the documents had not been properly catalogued to prevent unrelated, private sacramental matters from being disclosed.
Boxes of documents after 1923 simply haven't been catalogued and bound for release, said Eugene Fisher, a liaison to the committee from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Vatican, he said, only has two archivists cataloguing the documents, and has been releasing them slowly as they become ready. "It's not a question of whether," the documents will be released, he said. "It's all a matter of time."
However, the committee was not willing to wait. "Without some positive response to our respectful case for material in the archives that has not been published, we could not maintain our credibility with the many voices, Catholic, Jewish, and others, who have called for greater availability of archival material," said a July 20 letter by two Catholic and three Jewish historians to Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican official overseeing the project. "We therefore cannot see a way forward at present to the final report that you request, and believe that we must suspend our work."
Father Gerald Fogarty, a committee member, said he doubted the Vatican was withholding incriminating information that might slow Pope Pius' beatification. "I certainly think that the opening of the archives would clarify many positions, but ... I doubt there is a smoking gun," said Father Fogarty, a professor of church history and theology at the University of Virginia.
CWN - Catholic World News
24. juli 2001