Accessing the Private Archives
It was not until 1881 that Pope Leo XIII allowed researchers to view some of the archive’s contents. However, it was no simple matter for one to view the documents and the procedure has not changed much over the last 200 years. First of all, journalists, students, and amateur historians are not given access.
Once an interested party has proven that he or she is a serious enough scholar, credentials are granted that must be renewed every six months. To enter the archives, a “scholars enter through the
Porta Sant’Anna , pass Swiss Guards, walk through the
Spielberg and Netflix? It might not be the Oscar-winning marriage you think telegraph.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from telegraph.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Pope Francis' opening last year of the Vatican's archive of material related to his controversial predecessor Pius XII has provided a sense of hope that the Catholic Church can have open discussions a.
Decentralization, Absolutism, and the Papal States
by David Kertzer
Historian David Kertzer made a name for himself with his 1997 book
The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. The book covers the until then rarely mentioned case of an Italian Jewish boy who was illicitly baptized by the housekeeper, and then kidnapped in 1858 by Papal State authorities on the grounds that Jews in the Papal States could not be permitted to raise a Christian child.
Because so few books or in-depth articles have been written on the topic in English, Kertzer now enjoys a position as perhaps the preeminent expert on the case. This is no small thing since a number of filmmakers including Steven Spielberg have expressed interest in dramatizing the Mortara case on film. The film project explicitly based on Kertzer’s book was still moving forward as of February of this year.1
A Nazi love story about a mass murderer who got away - Holocaust Remembrance Day haaretz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from haaretz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.