Pope Benedict and the Vatican Archives

dublin | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis

Sunday July 02, 2006 21:21

by Chris Murray - The Unmanageables

The archives will be opened on September 18th 2006

Archives dating from the period 1922-1939 are to be opened by Pope Benedict on the
18th of September 2006.

"Giving new insight into what the Catholic Church knew and
did as Europe saw the rise of Nazism in Germany and the
Spainish Civil War"

The files are known as the Secret Archives and files of its
Secretariat of State for the Pontificate of Pius X1.

Reuters/ Irish Times :- (1-07-06).

www.ireland.com

Googled the Holy See, (as one does) to see if more info can be had on
Benedict's criteria for choosing this specific time-frame, such as-
have the archives up until 1922 been opened before and this is part of a synthesis
of release, or why the abrupt stop at 1939?

Reading history in a linear fashion rather than as something which often
involves mass-movement or community consciousness would tend to
point to this era being crucial.

The period preceeding 1922 would hold an unlimited fascination in terms of
labour movement and the assasination of such figures as Rosa luxemburg
(Jan 1919). The Spainish Civil war is mentioned also in the hopeful
analysis of that specific time encapsulation, the assasination of Lorca
comes to mind. The 17 year period of file and archive release necessarily reduces
the reading of the archive within a specific narrow framework which does
not account for the build-up to facism which would definitely preceed the
watermark indicated. The archives would contain some fascinating
documentation of that period in world history but are they part of an ongoing
cycle of release or are they an isolated example of a criteria of choice with regard to
the Shoah?

informations on the secret archives are to be had on the Vatican website
www.vatican.ca
http://asv.vatican.va/home_en.htm
http://asv.vaticanva/en/studi_stud,htm

In terms of bureaucracy and official secrets, many governments
wd have a specific period of time during which state papers are sealed
and released. The opening of the secret archive in an Independent
State such as Vatican city would probably have a different criteria
for selecting and approving the dates for release of such documentations.

Letter from Rosa Luxemburg:

" Our scribblings are usually not lyrics, but whirrings, without colour
or resonance, like the tone of an engine wheel. I believe that the
cause lies in the fact that when people write, they forget for the
most part to dig deeply into themselves and to feel the import
and truth of what they are writing. I believe that everytime, every day
in every article you write you must live through the thing again, you must
feel your way through it, and then fresh words-coming from the heart and going to the heart-
would occur to express the old familiar thing. But you get so used to a truth
that you rattle off the deepest and greatest things as if they were the
"Our father".
I firmly intend, when I write, never to forget to be enthusiastic about
what I write and to commune with myself"

(Rosa Luxemburg 1871-1919 , assassinated by Facists, unfortunately for
the archivist before the 1922-1939 encapsulation of the Rise of Nazism and the Shoah).

From : Rosa luxemburg: Reflections and Writings,ed Paul le Blanc. Humanity books
an imprint of Prometheus Books 1999.

Clara Zetkin: Die Gleicichet (1891-1917)
Google it.