The Vatican announced today that official documents spanning more than 40 years are now available online. The entire collection of the Actae Sanctae Sedis (A.S.S.) and of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (A.A.S.) — i.e., the official Acts of the Holy See from 1865 to 2007 — are now available in pdf format. Also available is a multi-volume collection of acts from World War II, (Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale), published by order of Paul VI starting in 1965, and edited by a specialized group of four Jesuit historians.
The project of putting the information online was supported by the New York-based Pave the Way Foundation. A statement from Pave the Way noted the collection — with its more than 9,000 pages — describes the contents of 5,125 documents that are still not catalogued in the Vatican Secret Archives, and consequently, still not open to the public. These documents have been at the heart of controversy as researchers seek to settle debate over the role Pope Pius XII played in saving Jews from the Holocaust.
Gary Krupp, president of the Pave the Way Foundation, said the research project is “extremely important.”
VATICAN CITY, (Zenit.org)