[ti:Keeper Wants You to Know Vatican's Secrets]
[al:Arts and Culture]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2024-02-25]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]The Roman Catholic Church has been trying for years to inform the public that its "secret" collection of documents is not secret.
[00:12.43]The Vatican has opened documents of World War II-period Pope Pius XII to researchers. 
[00:22.47]It even changed the official name of the archive to remove the word "Secret."
[00:31.74]Recently the chief of what is now called the Vatican Apostolic Archive, Archbishop Sergio Pagano, spoke to the Associated Press. 
[00:45.39]Pagano told some of the secrets he had uncovered in the 45 years of working in the archive. 
[00:55.84]The Vatican's archive is one of the world's most important stores of documents.
[01:04.38]In a new book-length interview called "Secretum," Pagano explained some of the largely unknown details of the history of the Vatican and its relations with the outside world over the past 1200 years.
[01:25.33]The interviews took place as discussions over a year with Italian reporter Massimo Franco.
[01:35.25]Pagano explains everything from French leader Napoleon taking documents to the 1922 financial support for the election of a pope from Catholics in the U.S.
[01:52.36]"It's the first time and it will also be the last because I'm about to leave," said Pagano who is 75.
[02:03.69]He also spoke to the AP before his expected retirement later this year.
[02:12.98]Pope Leo XIII first opened the archive to researchers in 1881. 
[02:22.14]Until then, it had only been used to serve the pope and preserve documentation of the head of the Catholic Church dating from the 8th century.
[02:37.20]The archive has 85 kilometers of space for books, much of it underground in a two-story, fireproof secure area.
[02:50.90]It also holds documents from Vatican embassies around the world and collections from powerful families and religious orders.
[03:04.45]The archive works much as any national or private archive would. 
[03:11.63]Researchers request permission to visit and then request documents to study in reading rooms.
[03:22.16]Most recently, researchers have been going to the archive to read through the documents of Pope Pius XII.
[03:34.14]He was the pope who has been criticized for not speaking out against the Holocaust during WWII.
[03:44.81]Pope Francis ordered the documents of his office opened earlier than planned, in 2020, so researchers could have a full picture of the papacy.
[04:00.01]In the book, Pagano criticizes incomplete research into the process of confirming the sainthood of Pius XII. 
[04:12.87]Researchers are now examining newly available documents.
[04:19.57]Aside from old stories, "Secretum" also shares new ones.
[04:26.55]They include an important financial relationship between Catholics in the U.S. and the Vatican that continues today and dates back to 1922.
[04:42.38]Pagano said that after Pope Benedict XV died, a financial official found that the Vatican had no money. 
[04:53.60]The book shares secret messages in which the Vatican asked its ambassador in Washington D.C. to send "what you have in the safe" so that the vote for a new pope could take place.
[05:11.68]The messages say the Vatican embassy sent $210,400.09 collected from the American Catholics. 
[05:26.18]That permitted the vote to elect Pope Pius XI.
[05:31.97]Pagano suggests that Francis' 2019 decision to remove the word "Secret" from the archive's name and rename it the Vatican Apostolic Archive was possibly a choice to gain donations.
[05:53.45]The U.S.-based group Treasures of History is aiming to support the newly renamed archive.
[06:04.38]At the end of the interview, Pagano showed visitors one of the archive's prized possessions.
[06:14.90]It is the 1530 letter from British nobles urging Pope Clement VII to permit King Henry VIII to end his marriage, so he could marry Anne Boleyn.
[06:33.03]Clement refused. Henry got married anyway. 
[06:38.30]He broke ties with the Catholic Church in Rome and established the Church of England.
[06:46.32]"You can say that here we are at the birth of the Anglican Church," Pagano said.
[06:55.91]Pagano explained how the document survived. 
[07:00.19]He said when Napoleon Bonaparte, the ruler of France, took documents from the Vatican archives in 1810, the chief archivist at the time hid the letter.
[07:15.54]"The French never found it," Pagano said, showing that he believed an archivist's main job is to preserve the archive.
[07:28.90]I'm Gena Bennett. And I'm Gregory Stachel.