re: History Channel: Vatican Secret Archives

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Why don't they digitize them and make them open to the public?

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Pretty sure they have for some. Quick wiki search:

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The Vatican Apostolic Archive (Latin: Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum; Italian: Archivio Apostolico Vaticano), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive, is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See.

The Pope, as the Sovereign of Vatican City, owns the material held in the archive until his death or resignation, with ownership passing to his successor. The archive also contains state papers, correspondence, account books, and many other documents that the church has accumulated over the centuries.

Pope Paul V separated the Secret Archive from the Vatican Library, where scholars had some very limited access, and the archive remained closed to outsiders until the late 19th century, when Pope Leo XIII opened the archive to researchers, more than a thousand of whom now examine some of its documents each year.


“Secret” Name

The use of the word secret in the former title, "Vatican Secret Archive", does not denote the modern meaning of confidentiality. A fuller and perhaps better translation of the archive's former Latin name may be the "private Vatican Apostolic archive", indicating that its holdings are the pope's personal property, not those of any particular department of the Roman Curia or the Holy See. The word secret continues to be used in this older, original sense in the English language, in phrases such as secret servants, secret cupbearer, or secretary, much like an esteemed position of honour and regard comparable to a VIP.[6] One study in 1969 stated that use of the term secret was merited, as the archives' cataloguing system was so inadequate that it remained "an extensive buried city, a Herculaneum inundated by the lava of time ... secret as an archeological dig is secret".[7]

Despite the change in name, parts of the archive do remain classified in the modern sense of the word secret; most of these classified materials, which are actively denied to outsiders, relate to contemporary personalities and activities, including everything dated after 1958, as well as the private records of church figures after 1922.

On 28 October 2019, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter motu proprio dated 22 October, renaming the archives from the Vatican Secret Archive to the Vatican Apostolic Archive.

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That being said, if you were the Catholic Church, why would you? Documents that make Papal Supremacy look like a modern notion (which it is). Documents that show how ruthless the Western Kingdoms were in destroying the Romans (which they were). And documents showing the anger the Pope had at the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204, destroying the Roman Empire (which shows how little control the Pope had).

What's the old adage? Better to appear in power and ruthless, than not in control.