VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican, trying to counter charges that Pope Pius XII did too little to stop the Holocaust, said on Friday it would open some of its secret archives for the period before, during and after World War Two.
A lengthy Vatican statement said Pope John Paul had decided that selected archives for the period leading up to 1939, during which the future Pius XII served as Vatican ambassador in Germany and later secretary of state, would be opened to scholars next year.
The first documents set for release deal with relations between the Vatican and Germany from 1922 to 1939. This involved some 640 folders.
Friday's statement said that, in about three years, the archives would be opened for documents concerning Vatican relations with Germany during Pius' pontificate, which ended with his death in 1958.
Scholars around the world, particularly Jewish groups, have asked the Vatican to open the archives relating to Pius before and during his pontificate.
Some have accused him of inaction during the Holocaust, in which the Nazis killed millions of Jews.
The Vatican's position is that Pius did not speak out more forcefully against the slaughter for fear of worsening the fate of Catholics, as well as Jews, in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries.
The Vatican statement said the current Pope, who has strongly defended his wartime predecessor and in 1998 called him "a great Pope", had decided to open the archives "to help bring an end to unjust and thankless speculation".
The current Roman Catholic leader had decided to open the archives on Pius' pontificate because it coincided with the war "and the deportation of the Jews in the tragedy of the Shoah".
A SHADOW OVER A PONTIFF
The wartime role of Pius has been one of the trickiest problems in post-war Catholic-Jewish relations.
In 1998, there was widespread Jewish discontent with a Vatican document called "We Remember, a Reflection on the Shoah", which effectively absolved Pius of the long-standing accusations that he facilitated the Holocaust by remaining silent.
The following year, Catholic and Jewish scholars set up a joint study group to review material already published about the pontificate of Pius.
But the talks broke down in acrimony in 2000 after the Jewish side said the Vatican had failed to give them access to the documents they needed to complete their work.
Before the study group fell apart the researchers had asked for more information on nearly 50 cases, saying the documents that had been published "often raise more important questions to which they do not provide answers".
Friday's statement said the Vatican also would release detailed documentation on prisoners of war.
It said this documentation would show that Pius had carried out "a great work of charity and help" for prisoners of "all nations, religions and races".
It acknowledged that it expected some scholars to be dissatisfied with only the partial opening of the archives.
But it noted that this was an exceptional move since full documentation is usually open to qualified outside scholars only after decades, in part because of the work involved and in part to protect the privacy of people who may still be alive.